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URL Shortener - Tutorial project for learning git, github, Travis CI, and Docker.

URL Shortener is a small web service exposing a RESTful HTTP API to create, resolve, and delete short URLs hosted on your own domain. It is written using JavaScript (ES6) and runs on Node.js.

The project serves a basis for a tutorial on git, github, Travis CI, and Docker. It is intended for people having a rough understanding of these different technologies and want to get a hands-on experience.

Please Note: This project serves teaching purposes and it is not meant to be used productively anywhere!

Information needed to solve the tutorial

Prerequisites

For this tutorial the following software is needed:

  • Node.js (>=6.9): Needed to run and test the project locally.
  • Git: Basically any git client can be used, however the CLI version is recommend to get a better feeling for different git commands.
  • Docker: Needed to test docker files.

Additionally, a github account is required.

Project-related Commands

  • npm install: Install all dependencies
  • npm start: Start the web service
  • npm run lint: Check if coding standards are followed
  • npm test: Test the RESTful API of the URL shortening service. IMPORTANT: The service must be started in order to test it!

All of these commands must be executed in the root directory of the project.

RESTful HTTP API

  • POST /create will generate a shortened URL. The URL to be shortened must be passed in to body of the request, either using form data (url=<long-url>) or by passing JSON ({"url": "<long-url>"}). If successful, status code 201 is returned and the shortened URL is provided in the header field Location
  • GET /:id will redirect to the unshortened URL for the given id. If the id is not found, status code 404 is returned.
  • DELETE /:id will delete the shortened URL with the given id.

Testing the API

The API can be tested in various ways:

  • Automated Testing: The project comes along with automated API test that can be executed by running npm test. It is important that the service runs, otherwise the tests will fail.
  • Manual Browser-based Testing: Open http://localhost:3000 to use a simple Web UI to manually test the application.

Project Configuration

The service can run with and without authentication. The following environment variables can be used to configure if authentication shall be activated and which credentials are needed:

  • AUTH: If set to true, the methods POST and GET will require username and password
  • USER: username (only needed if AUTH=true)
  • PASSWORD: password (only needed if AUTH=true)

Files and Folders

  • /data/: Each short URL is stored as file within this folder. The filename is the id of the short URL and the long URL is stored as the file content.
  • /node_modules/: Includes all dependencies downloaded by the package manager.
  • /tests/: Folder containing all tests (currently just one).
  • .eslintrc: Configuration file for ESLint, the tool to check the coding standards.
  • *.js: Service implementation.
  • package.json: Configuration file for the package manager

Exercise

Task 1: Git & Github

  • Login on github and fork this repository.
  • Clone the forked repository to your local machine.
  • Get the project running in your local environment by installing the dependencies and start the web service. You can manually test, whether or not the service works by accessing http://localhost:3000/
  • Create a .gitignore file which ensures that only necessary files are checked into the respository.
  • Remove any files from the repository that shall not be in it.
  • Commit and push your changes to your forked repository.

Task 2: Travis CI

  • Create a .travis.yml that enables continuous integration for this project. For this, have a look at the Travis CI getting started guide.
  • Create build matrix that tests the project for node 6 and 7 as well as with and without authentication.
  • Travis shall test if the coding standards are followed and if the API works are intended.
  • Ensure that the build only runs on the master branch.
  • Information about every build shall be sent to your e-mail adress.
  • Syntactically validate your .travis.yml on http://lint.travis-ci.org/
  • Prepare to run you build by going to travis-ci.org, login with your github account, and enable continuous integration for the forked repository.
  • AFTER the preparation, push your .travis.yml to for forked repository and check the build results on travis-ci.org

Task 3: Docker

  • Create a Dockerfile
  • Use the official node.js image node:7-slim as the base image. Other node images will too work, too, but require more disk space.
  • Set NODE_ENV to production so that dev dependencies are ignored within this container.
  • Copy all necessary files into the image. Use a .dockerignore file to exclude unneeded files.
  • Find the correct command sequence to setup the project within the container.
  • Identify were the application stores its state and define it as a volume.
  • Expose the proper port.
  • Ensure that the application is started when the container is started.

Required Dockerfile Intructions

  • FROM: Sets the base image.
  • ENV: Set environment variables (can be overwritten by docker run -e VAR=VALUE).
  • RUN: Run commands to install or configure software.
  • ADD/COPY: Copy files to the image.
  • USER: User id for CMD, RUN, and ENTRYPOINT instructions.
  • EXPOSE: Defines which ports are exposed by the container.
  • WORKDIR: Defines the working directory for instructions.
  • VOLUME: Directories mounted from the host or other containers.
  • CMD: Default commands to be executed (can be overwritten when the container is started).

For more detailed descriptions and examples, have a look at the Dockerfile reference

Docker commands to test Dockerfile

# Build the image:
docker build -t urlshortener .

# Start the container and bind port locally
docker run -d -p 3000:3000 --name myshortener urlshortener

# Service should now be accessible at http://localhost:3000

# Verify that the container is running
docker ps

# Stop the container
docker stop myshortener

# Remove the container
docker rm myshortener

Task 4: Docker and Travis CI

  • Use Travis CI to test the Docker container.
  • Instead of directly starting the service by calling npm start, build and start the container.
  • Use the Travis CI node environment to run the tests on the container.
  • Try to inject the environment variables so that the service is still tested with and without authentication.

IMPORTANT(!): Run the container in detached mode (flag -d) otherwise it will block the build!