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Hosting a PSQL DB using Heroku

** This file is only relevant for an advanced task. You can ignore this until then! **

There are many ways to host applications like the one you have created. One of these solutions is Heroku. Heroku provides a service that you can push your code to and it will build, run and host it. Heroku also allows for easy database integration. Their documentation is excellent, so take a look at that. This document is essentially a more condensed, specific version of the steps described in the Heroku docs.

1. Install the Heroku CLI

Install the heroku cli globally with the following npm command:

npm i heroku -g

Alternative installation method on macOS:

brew tap heroku/brew && brew install heroku

...or Ubuntu:

curl https://cli-assets.heroku.com/install-ubuntu.sh | sh

2. Create a Heroku App

Log into Heroku using their command line interface:

heroku login

Create an app in an active git directory. Doing this in the folder where your server exists is a good start, as this is what you will be hosting.

heroku create your-app-name

Here your-app-name should be the name you want to give your application. If you don't specify an app name, you'll get a random one which can sometimes be a bit iffy.

This command will both create an app on Heroku for your account. It will also add a new remote to your git repository. Check this by looking at your git remotes:

git remote -v

3. Push Your code up to Heroku

git push heroku main

4. Creating a Hosted Database

Go to the heroku site and log in.

  • Select your application
  • Configure Add-ons
  • Choose Heroku Postgres

The free tier will be adequate for our purposes. This will provide you with a postgreSQL pre-created database!

Check that the database exists. Click settings on it, and view the credentials. Keep an eye on the URI. Don't close this yet!

5. Seeding the Production Database

Check that your database's url is added to the environment variables on Heroku:

heroku config:get DATABASE_URL

If you are in your app's directory, and the database is correctly linked as an add on to Heroku, it should display a DB URI string that is exactly the same as the one in your credentials.

In your package.json, add the following keys to the scripts:

{
  "scripts": {
    "seed:prod": "NODE_ENV=production DATABASE_URL=$(heroku config:get DATABASE_URL) npm run seed"
  }
}

This will establish an environment variable called DATABASE_URL, and set it to whatever heroku provides as your database's URL. It is essential that you do this as the database URL may change! This deals with a lack of predictability on heroku's end.

At the top of your connection.js, assign the value of the NODE_ENV to a variable (you may have already created this variable):

const ENV = process.env.NODE_ENV || 'development';

It is important to check that we have either the development/test PGDATABASE variable or the production DATABASE_URL. If both are missing from the process.env, then throw an error.

if (!process.env.PGDATABASE && !process.env.DATABASE_URL) {
  throw new Error('PGDATABASE or DATABASE_URL not set');
}

Next, add a config variable. If the ENV is production, this variable should hold a config object, containing the DATABASE_URL at the connectionString key, along with an additional ssl.rejectUnauthorized property set to false. This allows you to connect to the hosted database from your local machine.

const ENV = process.env.NODE_ENV || 'development';
// ...
const config =
  ENV === 'production'
    ? {
        connectionString: process.env.DATABASE_URL,
        ssl: {
          rejectUnauthorized: false,
        },
      }
    : {};

module.exports = new Pool(config);

// ...

Now, run the seed prod script that you added to your package.json earlier:

npm run seed:prod

It should check whether you're in production, and if you are, it should connect to the production database. Otherwise it will connect to the test or development database specified in your (.gitignore'd) .env files.

7. Use Heroku's PORT

In listen.js, make sure you take the PORT off the environment object if it's provided. This is because heroku will provide a port if in production.

const { PORT = 9090 } = process.env;

app.listen(PORT, () => console.log(`Listening on ${PORT}...`));

8. Add a start script

Make sure your package.json has this as a start script:

"start": "node listen.js",

Commit your changes, and push to heroku main.

git push heroku main

9. Review Your App

heroku open

Any issues should be debugged with:

heroku logs --tail