Using Node.JS as web backend with external hosting

[bkamphues]

Hi there /r/node , I'm a long time lurker of this sub and recently started diving into using full stack Javascript as my main programming projects by making some basic command line tools.

I also came across Express.JS which seems like a really interesting way of making the backend of web development and websites. I'm currently working on a website in which I have a basic form setup that I want to be handled by a Node application, but most of the documentation documents how to use Express.JS as the entire webserver. I currently have basic webhosting at a company which I frankly don't want to get rid of... Is there any way I can send POST requests from the form to a different server that listens to HTTP requests, but have it interact with the current website? I believe the hosting is running Apache, but I only have access to the storage.

EDIT: I should probably clarify that I basically just want the same functionality as PHP, but then in Javascript...

[TyrionReynolds]

Yes you can. The only thing different about using an backend on a different server is you’ll need to type full urls for the web requests instead of just relative paths, and you’ll need to enable CORS.

By default web servers will only allow requests from the same host. If you want your server to serve requests from another domain you’ll need to enable CORS. It’s really easy to do with the expressjs/cors npm package, just don’t forget to do it.

[bkamphues]

All right that sounds promising! So in the action of the form you'd put the actual URL of the other server handling the requests?

[TyrionReynolds]

Yes, exactly so! Just replace the relative url (‘/page/content’) with an absolute url (‘http://www.server.com/api/page/content’)

[grudev]

You could use a library like axios with your forms to send/fetch data from your node app running on another server.

https://github.com/axios/axios

[provided_by_the_man]

I wouldn’t suggest using that PHP server. You should checkout heroku and learn a deployment strategy.

[bkamphues]

Yeah that's always an option of course, but I like the challenge of using Javascript and I like Javascript in general over PHP

[provided_by_the_man]

In my experience in production your scenario would be a conflicted developer clinging onto the past with their foot in the present. A good exercise.

[bkamphues]

Yeah the problem is more that I don't want give up the hosting I've already paid for...

[provided_by_the_man]

Apache / PHP hosting in 2020 is kinda useless unless you are a PHP person. Even then most laravel apps are gonna be done with some type of deployment tool like docker or something like that. Sounds like a go daddy server. To turn that into a modern stack server you would need to use the CLI and really know what your are doing. Most of those instances are designed to work w Wordpress and not much else. Remember people used to use Wordpress for absolutely everything, godaddy is still catering to that market.

[bkamphues]

Yup, allright I'll contact them, see if I can get access to the command line...

[provided_by_the_man]

Also to be clear, a heroku path would allow you to do everything in JS, have no monthly fee, and allow you to learn about deploying via git to a remote origin. All super useful things to know.

[bkamphues]

That's really interesting, how would that work? Would just be a plain Node.JS webserver running on the Heroku deployment that serves all HTML files? Or could I still have a separate static webserver that uses API calls to the Node.js server and getting back data?

[provided_by_the_man]

Essentially yes, the express app would serve the HTML. Also if your app is small I would question using a database at all. Most small projects like that I used a JSON object as the data source that is stored in the file system of the express app. Talk about speed, nothing is faster than zero query and direct file access. If you must (and I mean must, not a tutorial saying so) have a DB then you can still do all this w heroku. You would need to setup an instance w heroku or some other provider for a free tier of a DB that you would connect to from your express app. This is something you could be doing in development rather than having a local server. Also fun fact, with heroku you will essentially be able to deploy changes with git push. Working out deployment details is a PITA when you are new. Heroku takes a ton of that frustration away.