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Deploy Rookout on a Node.JS container

This short tutorial will walk you through the perfect Rookout deployment for containerized NodeJS applications in four quick steps.

Get Your Application​

First things first, choose an application. If you don't have one readily available, use our sample application.

Start by:


git clone https://github.com/Rookout/node-tutorial-2022
cd node-tutorial-2022

1. Add the npm Package​

Rookout for NodeJS is a simple npm Package.
Go ahead and add it as a dependency:


npm install --save rookout

2. Start Rookout​

Load and start the package to connect to your Rookout account (if you haven't signed up, do that here).

The start function returns a promise - wait for it to debug the application initialization code.

Edit your main file - in our case index.js:


const rookout = require('rookout')
rookout.start({ 
    token: '[Your Rookout Token]',
    labels: {
        env: 'dev'
    }
}).then(/*Start your application here*/)

Configuration is where you can get fancy. You have got additional options up your sleeve:

  1. Move options to secret or configuration managers.
  2. If you are using a Rookout Controller, set up the remote host and port configuration.
  3. Dig deeper into other options available right here.

3. Include Source Maps​

Configure transpiling tools to generate source maps and include them in your container image.

For babel, open the babel.config.json file and change the sourceMaps configuration to inline:


{
    "sourceMaps": "inline"
}

Instructions to configure Webpack, TypeScript, and CoffeeScript may be found here.

4. Embed Source Information​

Rookout offers the smoothest debugging experience by displaying up-to-date source code for each server.

Set this up for containerized applications by adding a handful of files from your .git folder to the container image.

Edit (or add) your .Dockerignore file and adapt the traditional .git exclude:


# Keep ignoring .git
.git
# Allow specific files with !
!.git/HEAD
!.git/config
!.git/refs

Add a COPY command to the end of the Dockerfile, just above the ENTRYPOINT.


COPY .git /.git

Note: in multi-stage builds (like ours), make all your changes on the final stage.

Test​

One second! if you are not using our demo app, please commit and push your changes to a new branch.

Build and run your Docker image:


docker build . -t rookout-nodejs-todo
docker run -it -p 8080:8080 rookout-nodejs-todo

As your Node.JS application spins up, search for this output at the top:

Interact with your application at http://localhost:8080 and use Rookout to debug it on the fly!

Questions?​

  1. Check out this reference implementation.
  2. Dig into our Node.JS docs.
  3. Reach out to us via chat or email.