We want a minimal example to demonstrate the use of the following:

• React
• Node
• Passport-local
• Postgres
• Tape, Supertest

We use Postgres here though it should be easy to do a MongoDB version.

Postgres

Install

Some usual psql commands:

• \du to list all users
• \l to list all databases
• \dt to list all tables in current database

In case you haven't created a user:

sudo -u postgres psql

CREATE USER jchiu;
ALTER USER jchiu SUPERUSER CREATEDB;

Exit and login to postgres as the new user. Create a database just for this app.

psql template1
CREATE DATABASE db0000 WITH OWNER=jchiu;

Exit and login to the new database by typing psql db0000.

Next, set a password for this database by modifying /etc/postgresql/9.5/main/pg_hba.conf. For example, add the following line to the end:

host db0000 jchiu 127.0.0.1/32 password

Then set the password.

psql db0000

ALTER ROLE jchiu UNENCRYPTED PASSWORD 'somepassword';

Try logging in:

psql -h localhost -d db0000

You will be prompted for a password. Try different possibilities to make sure it works.

This information should be consistent with what is specified in models/pool.js.

Model

When a user is created, or when a password is updated, we create a new salt for the user, which is really just some random bits.

hash is computed from hashing salt+password. The latter is string concatenation.

Create our table. We add just the fields we need for this example. Some simple constraints are added, e.g., uniqueness of username. We also add an index for username.

psql db0000
CREATE TABLE table_users(
  id SERIAL PRIMARY KEY,
  salt VARCHAR(255) NOT NULL CHECK (char_length(username)>=4),
  username VARCHAR(255) UNIQUE NOT NULL CHECK (char_length(username)>=4),
  hash VARCHAR(1000) NOT NULL CHECK (char_length(hash)>=4));

CREATE INDEX index_users_username_ ON table_users(username);

\d table_users

Node backend

Install

We assume you have installed Node and npm.

In case you don't have the following already installed on your machine, do:

sudo npm install express-generator supervisor -g

Let's put our Node code in the directory backend.

express backend
cd backend
npm install

In package.json, under scripts.start, change it from node ./bin/www to supervisor ./bin/www.

Try the app and see that it works by typing npm start. By default, for Express, the site would be available at http://localhost:3000.

Next, install all the packages we need.

npm install --save \
passport passport-local \
crypto underscore \
continuation-local-storage \
express-session \
pg

Tape

We use Tape and Supertest for unit test. It is simpler than mocha but has some quirks. For example, the test might not end because the server is running. That explains why we have test.onFinish(() => process.exit()); at the start of each test.

To install:

sudo npm install tape -g
npm install tape supertest --save-dev

Add the following to package.json:

"test": "tape **/*_test.js"

One simple test is models/pool_test.js. It will test that we can connect to the database and that the table is created.

React

Install

In case you don't have this utility installed:

sudo npm install -g create-react-app

Create app

create-react-app frontend
cd frontend
PORT=3001 npm start

Stick in PORT=3001 so that we start frontend on :3001. We assume backend is on :3000 instead.

If you are using Sublime, you can use https://github.com/babel/babel-sublime to improve the syntax highlighting. Install package and set syntax to Babel.

Install some modules.

npm install --save \
axios \
bootstrap@3 \
react-toastr \
react-confirm-alert

For Bootstrap, remember to update index.js. We need to import some CSS.

For Toast, we need to copy two CSS files toastr.min.css and animate.min.css and import them in index.js.