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Javascript, Programming, Technical, Uncategorized

Deploying first SailsJS node.js app to DigitalOcean using Dokku on Mac

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Here’s a (very) quick and dirty overview of the steps. Follow everything below in order and you should have your node.js app (optionally running SailsJS) deployed on a dokku server on DigitalOcean within a few minutes.

Useful Links:
* Dokku – https://github.com/progrium/dokku
* MariaDB plugin – https://github.com/Kloadut/dokku-md-plugin

Set your SSH key into DigitalOcean if you haven’t already
* cat ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub | pbcopy
* Paste this key into digitalocean control panel.

Create Droplet

* Select 1GB
* San Fran
* Dokku
* Select your existing SSH key.
* Virtio + backups (maybe virt network if need to connect)

Set up Dokku

* Visit in your browser: http://YOUR-SERVER-IP/
* Submit, optionally setting the app URL to use subdomains. Most settings should default to correct at this point.

Initialize the app access dokku

* cat ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub | ssh [email protected] "sudo sshcommand acl-add dokku YOUR-APP-NAME"
** Note that if instead of YOUR-APP-NAME you put a full domain it will use that as the URL instead of setting up a subdomain. Eg api.dustinbolton.com instead of dustinbolton-api

Configuring local app

Initialize the local repo if you have not already
* git init && git add -A && git commit -m "Initial commit"

Assign production (or staging) destination:
* git remote add production [email protected]:YOUR-APP-NAME

Create file to tell server what to run on deployment:
* touch Procfile && open Procfile
* Add the following into this new file & save:
* web: sails lift
** For non-sails framework, instead of “sails lift” this would be “node app.js”.

Deploy & launch the app

* git push -u production master
<3>Done!

If you need to manually re-run the app or see the output of the run attempt (such as to troubleshoot):
* ssh [email protected]
cd /home/dokku/YOUR-APP-NAME
dokku run YOUR-APP-NAME sails lift
(or instead of “sails lift”, “node app.js”)

Adapted from the guide at:
http://matthewpalmer.net/blog/2014/02/19/how-to-deploy-node-js-apps-on-digitalocean-with-dokku/

MariaDB (mysql drop-in alternative) plugin:

cd /var/lib/dokku/plugins
git clone https://github.com/Kloadut/dokku-md-plugin mariadb
#git clone https://github.com/musicglue/dokku-user-env-compile.git user-env-compile
dokku plugins-install

Create Database Instance

dokku mariadb:create YOUR-APP-NAME
* This creates the mariadb instance and links it to your app automatically since the name matches. The database name is “db” by default.

You can use the credentials displayed or access them via environmental variables such by: process.env.DB_USER

Setting Custom Environment Variables

Database environment variables should automatically exist but I have seen them drop off. I have not found the cause yet and have decided to manually set the one(s) I need for the time being.
dokku config:set YOUR-APP-NAME DATABASE_URL=whateverhere

If you ever need to restart your app. Only change “YOUR-APP-NAME”:

docker restart `cat /home/dokku/YOUR-APP-NAME/CONTAINER`