Forums

Building and Publishing Node.js Applications with Windows Azure Web Sites (OS X)

Download lab assets/Fork on GitHub/Report an issue

Overview

In this hands-on lab, you will learn the basics of the Windows Azure Web Sites service for Node.js applications. In Exercise 1, you will see how to use the Windows Azure portal for creating a web site and then publish a "Hello World" Node.js application using GIT. In Exercise 2, you will learn how to use the Windows Azure Command-Line Tools for publishing applications.

Objectives

In this hands-on lab, you will learn how to create and publish a Node.js application using:

Git
Windows Azure Command-Line Tools for Mac and Linux

Prerequisites

The following is required to complete this hands-on lab:

Git Version Control System
Node.js
Windows Azure Command-Line Tools for Mac and Linux (for Exercise 2 only)

Note
Note: If you do not have Windows Azure Command-Line Tools for Mac and Linux installed, open a terminal and run the following command:

By using -g, Windows Azure Command-Line Tools will install on your machine globally. That means, you will be able to execute azure commands from any location.
A Windows Azure subscription with the Web Sites Preview enabled - sign up for a free trial

Note

Note: This lab was designed to use the OS X Operating System.

Exercises

This hands-on lab includes the following exercises:

Building and Publishing a Node.js Web Site using GIT
Building and Publishing a Node.js Web Site using the Command-Line Tools

Exercise 1: Building and Publishing a Node.js Web Site using GIT

In the first exercise you will create a new web site from the Windows Azure portal, create a 'Hello World' Node.js application and finally publish it, taking advantage of the new GIT publishing feature provided by Windows Azure.

Task 1 – Creating a New Web Site Hosted in Windows Azure

Go to the Windows Azure portalWindows Azure portal and sign in using the Microsoft Account credentials associated with your subscription.

Log on into Windows Azure portal
In Windows Azure portal home page, click the New button located on the bottom bar.

Creating a new web site
Click Web Site | Quick Create. Provide an available URL for the new web site, select a region, and click Create Web Site.

Creating a new Web Site using Quick Create option
Wait until the new web site is created.

Creating new web site status
Once the web site is created click on the URL link to check that the new web site is working.

Browsing to the new web site

Web site running
Go back to the portal and click the web site name column to go to the site's dashboard.

Selecting the dashboard tab
Click the Set up Git publishing link.

Setting up Git Publishing
Wait a few seconds until the Git repository is ready.

Git repository created
Do not close the portal.

Task 2 - Creating a new Node.js Website

Create a new folder in a location that can be easily accessed.

Open your favorite text editor and copy the following code that will send the string Hello World to the browser. Save the file as server.js in the folder you have previously created.

var http = require('http');
var port = process.env.port || 1337;
http.createServer(function (req, res) {
                  res.writeHead(200, { 'Content-Type': 'text/plain' });
                  res.end('Hello World\n');
}).listen(port);

Create a new text file and paste the following code. Save the file as package.json in the same folder.
```
{
  "name": "HelloWorld",
  "version": "0.0.1",
  "description": "",
  "main": "./server.js",
  "engines": { "node": ">= 0.6.0" }
}
```
Note
Note: The package.json file tells the Node.js package manager (npm) how your package is structured, and which are the module dependencies. As this application is very simple it does not require dependencies, but in more complex applications you will probably need to specify a "dependencies" property. When publishing applications with Git, the Windows Azure platform automatically installs all the dependencies declared in this file.

In the text editor create a new file and paste the following code. This configuration indicates that the server.js file is a Node.js application that should be handled by the iisnode module.

Note

Note: The iisnode project provides a native IIS 7.x module that allows hosting of node.js applications in IIS 7.x.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<configuration>
    <system.webServer>
          <modules runAllManagedModulesForAllRequests="false" />

      &lt;!-- indicates that the server.js file is a node.js application 
        to be handled by the iisnode module --&gt;
      &lt;handlers&gt;
        &lt;add name="iisnode" path="server.js" verb="*" modules="iisnode" /&gt;
      &lt;/handlers&gt;
      &lt;rewrite&gt;
        &lt;rules&gt;
          &lt;clear /&gt;
          &lt;rule name="app" enabled="true" patternSyntax="ECMAScript" stopProcessing="true"&gt;
            &lt;match url="server\.js.+" negate="true" /&gt;
            &lt;conditions logicalGrouping="MatchAll" trackAllCaptures="false" /&gt;
            &lt;action type="Rewrite" url="server.js" /&gt;
          &lt;/rule&gt;
        &lt;/rules&gt;
      &lt;/rewrite&gt;
&lt;/system.webServer&gt;


</configuration>

Save the file as web.config in your web site folder.

Task 3 – Publishing the Node.js application using Git

Go back to the portal. Open the site's Dashboard and copy the Git Clone Url value from the bottom of the page.

Copying the Git Clone Url
In order to publish your local files, open a Terminal console, change directories to your application folder and run the following commands.
```
git init
git add .
git commit -m "initial commit"
```
Note
Note: You can learn more about Git commands in http://git-scm.com/documentation.
To add the remote Windows Azure repository and push the files, run the following commands. Replace the {Git Clone Url} placeholder with the value obtained from the portal.
```
git remote add azure {Git Clone Url}
git push azure master
```
Enter the deployment credentials when prompted.

Note
Note: Deployment credentials are other than the Microsoft Account associated with your Windows Azure subscription and are valid for use with all Windows Azure web sites associated with your subscription. If you don't know your deployment credentials you can easily reset them using the management portal. Open the web site Dashboard page and click the Reset deployment credentials link. Provide a new password and click Ok.

Resetting the deployment credentials
Go to the site's Dashboard and click the Site Url link to ensure that the site is running. A Hello Word message will be shown.

Running the Node.js application

Exercise 2: Building and Publishing a Node.js Web Site using the Command-Line Tools

In this exercise, you will learn how manage web sites using the Windows Azure Command-Line Tools for Mac and Linux.

Note

Note: These steps assume you have the Windows Azure Command-Line Tools for Mac and Linux installed.

Open a Terminal console and execute the following command to download your account's publish settings file. A new browser window will pop up. Log on using your Microsoft Account credentials associated with your Windows Azure subscription.
```
azure account download
```
Your publish settings will be downloaded to your browser's default download folder (usually ~/Downloads) and a new page with relevant information will be displayed.

Downloading the publish settings file
Go back to the Terminal console and import the file downloaded in the previous step by running the following command, specifying the publish settings file location in the {publishsettingsfile} placeholder.
```
azure account import {publish_settings_file}
```
Execute Task 2 from Exercise 1 to create a Node.js site, but placing the files in a different folder.
Go back to the Terminal console and change directories in order to go to the folder where you placed the files.
Run the following command to create the Windows Azure Web Site with GIT publishing feature enabled.
```
azure site create --git
```
Provide a site name when prompted, for example nodejsappOSXcli. Then select a region and proceed.

Creating a new Web Site and enabling GIT publishing

Note
Note: By specifying --git when running the command site create you don't need to run additional commands to initialize the Git repository or add the git remote, since these two tasks will be done automatically by the Windows Azure Command-Line Tools.
Now you will add the application files to a Git repository and push them to the Windows Azure Web Site. To do this, go back to the command prompt and execute the following commands. When prompted provide your deployment credentials.
```
git add .
git commit -m "initial commit"
git push azure master
```
Pushing the site files

Note
Note: Deployment credentials are other than the Microsoft Account associated with your Windows Azure subscription and are valid for use with all Windows Azure web sites associated with your subscription. If you don't know your deployment credentials you can easily reset them using the management portal. Open the web site Dashboard page and click the Reset deployment credentials link. Provide a new password and click Ok.

Resetting the deployment credentials
Run the following command to open the published deployments for your site in Windows Azure portal.
```
azure site portal
```
In Windows Azure portal, select your site from the list and open the Deployments page of the site. Check out the latest deployment.

Site deployments
Execute the following command to browse to the published web site and make sure it works.
```
azure site browse
```
Web site working