Running Node js in apache

Question

We have an Apache Webserver installed on a machine which also serves pages using Perl   For a project I ve decided to use Node js instead of Perl Ruby  Just wondering if it s possible to use Apache as my webserver  so it serves the pages  and use Node js to dynamically create the web pages  this is for a web app I am creating    So in other words can they work hand in hand just like Apache Perl or Apache PHP etc

User · Answer

Although there are a lot of good tips here I'd like to answer the question you asked:

So in other words can they work hand in hand just like Apache/Perl or Apache/PHP etc..

YES, you can run Node.js on Apache along side Perl and PHP IF you run it as a CGI module. As of yet, I am unable to find a mod-node for Apache but check out: CGI-Node for Apache here http://www.cgi-node.org/ .

The interesting part about cgi-node is that it uses JavaScript exactly like you would use PHP to generate dynamic content, service up static pages, access SQL database etc. You can even share core JavaScript libraries between the server and the client/browser.

I think the shift to a single language between client and server is happening and JavaScript seems to be a good candidate.

A quick example from cgi-node.org site:

<? include('myJavaScriptFile.js'); ?>
<html>
   <body>
      <? var helloWorld = 'Hello World!'; ?>
      <b><?= helloWorld ?><br/>
      <? for( var index = 0; index < 10; index++) write(index + ' '); ?>
   </body>
</html>

This outputs:

Hello World!
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

You also have full access to the HTTP request. That includes forms, uploaded files, headers etc.

I am currently running Node.js through the cgi-node module on Godaddy.

CGI-Node.org site has all the documentation to get started.

I know I'm raving about this but it is finally a relief to use something other than PHP. Also, to be able to code JavaScript on both client and server.

Hope this helps.

User · Answer

Hosting a nodejs site through apache can be organized with apache proxy module   It s better to start nodejs server on localhost with default port 1337  Enable proxy with a command   sudo a2enmod proxy proxy http   Do not enable proxying with ProxyRequests until you have secured your server  Open proxy servers are dangerous both to your network and to the Internet at large  Setting ProxyRequests to Off does not disable use of the ProxyPass directive   Configure  etc apche2 sites-availables with   lt VirtualHost   80 gt      ServerAdmin admin site com     ServerName site com     ServerAlias www site com       ProxyRequests off       lt Proxy   gt          Order deny allow         Allow from all      lt  Proxy gt        lt Location   gt          ProxyPass http   localhost 1337          ProxyPassReverse http   localhost 1337       lt  Location gt   lt  VirtualHost gt    and restart apache2 service

User · Answer

You can always do something shell-scripty like      usr bin node  var header    Content-type  text plain n   var hi    Hello World from nodetest    console log header   console log hi    exit

User · Answer

If you re using PHP you can funnel your request to Node scripts via shell exec  passing arguments to scripts as JSON strings in the command line  Example call    lt  php     shell exec  node nodeScript js       without arguments     shell exec  node nodeScript js    your JSON here         with arguments   gt    The caveat is you need to be very careful about handling user data when it goes anywhere near a command line  Example nightmare    lt  php      evilUserData        malicious commands here         shell exec  node nodeScript js    evilUserData        gt

User · Answer

The common method for doing what you re looking to do is to run them side by side  and either proxy requests from apache to node js based on domain   url  or simply have your node js content be pulled from the node js port  This later method works very well for having things like socket io powered widgets on your site and such     If you re going to be doing all of your dynamic content generation in node however  you might as well just use node js as your primary webserver too  it does a very good job at serving both static and dynamic http requests   See    http   expressjs com   https   github com joyent node wiki modules

User · Answer

While doing my own server side JS experimentation I ended up using teajs  It conforms to common js  is based on V8 AND is the only project that I know of that provides  mod teajs  apache server module    In my opinion Node js server is not production ready and lacks too many features - Apache is battle tested and the right way to do SSJS

User · Answer

No  NodeJS is not available as an Apache module in the way mod-perl and mod-php are  so it s not possible to run node  on top of  Apache   As hexist pointed out  it s possible to run node as a separate process and arrange communication between the two  but this is quite different to the LAMP stack you re already using   As a replacement for Apache  node offers performance advantages if you have many simultaneous connections  There s also a huge ecosystem of modules for almost anything you can think of   From your question  it s not clear if you need to dynamically generate pages on every request  or just generate new content periodically for caching and serving  If its the latter  you could use separate node task to generate content to a directory that Apache would serve  but again  that s quite different to PHP or Perl   Node isn t the best way to serve static content  Nginx and Varnish are more effective at that  They can serve static content while Node handles the dynamic data   If you re considering using node for a web application at all  Express should be high on your list  You could implement a web application purely in Node  but Express  and similar frameworks like Flatiron  Derby and Meteor  are designed to take a lot of the pain and tedium away  Although the Express documentation can seem a bit sparse at first  check out the screen casts which are still available here  http   expressjs com 2x screencasts html  They ll give you a good sense of what express offers and why it is useful  The github repository for ExpressJS also contains many good examples for everything from authentication to organizing your app

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