Hosting a Nodejs and MongoDB App on Heroku

This tutorial is meant to make it easy for anyone who is hosting a nodejs application that uses the mongoDB database. If you have already checked out my other heroku tutorial using postgresql, then this tutorial will just be a piece of cake.

In any case, I will assume that you are here for the first time, so I will run you through a beginner process. We will be hosting the authentication app we completed in the last tutorial.

1. Clone the project here.
2. Delete the .git file that may have come with it. Another .git file will be created for you in the process of you pushing to GitHub.

So without further ado, let's get our hands dirty.

Uploading to GitHub

Uploading or pushing to GitHub is as easy as taking your favorite meal. Please checkout any of the following links to get directed on just how to push your project from you local machine to GitHub

1. Adding an existing project to GitHub using the command line

2. Adding an existing project to GitHub using the command line

Deploying to Heroku

I am going to make this process so easy that you will just smile throughout.

• Let's begin by creating an account on Heroku

If you have created an account, you may have been prompted to create an app (i.e. a folder where your app will be housed). Create it. Mine is named nodejs-mongodb-auth-app

• Go to your app's dashboard

• Select the GitHub Deployment method

• Search and select a repo
• Click on connect

• Select the branch you want to deploy (In my own case, it is the master branch)

• Enable automatic deployment by clicking Enable automatic deployment button as in the image above.

• Click on the Deploy button in the manual deploy

We will not have to do all these for subsequent deployment

• Now you have a button telling you to "view site" after build is completed. Click it. (This will open your app in a new tab)

OHHH NOOOO!!!! A BUG? APPLICATION ERROR?

Well, it just a small issue. Something you should never forget to do while making deployments. Most hosting service will require it

Fixing Heroku Application Error

Get back to the root directory of your project

• Create a file and name it Procfile (It has no extension)
• In the file, enter the following

web: node index.js

This directs Heroku to the server file (index.js) which is the entry point of the application. If your server is in a different file, please modify as required

• Save the file
• Push the new changes to GitHub
• Wait 2 to 5 minutes for Heroku to automatically detect changes in your github repo and effect the changes on the app.
• You can now refresh that error page and see your hard work paying off

Adding MongoDB

You must have noticed that other routes are not functional. Yes, it is because we have not included our database.

Remember that the URL to our database is in our .env file. But our .env file is not included in our project on github after we pushed it. So we have to directly add the mongoDB URL into our heroku app.

Let's do that...

• Navigate to the settings of your app https://dashboard.heroku.com/apps/<your_app_name>/settings

• Scroll down to the Config Vars section
• Add the key and value of your database

That is all!!! Your App should be working fine now...

Testing

The easiest way to test if it is working is to try the login endpoint

Mine Worked!

Conclusion

We started out by cloning a the project from our last tutorial. Next, I pointed you to how to push a project to github. We then created a heroku app where we hosted out project from github with ease. Finally, we added our database URL to the app and our app works perfectly like it worked locally.

I hope you have enjoined every bit of this tutorial as I have enjoyed while creating it.

See you in my next tutorial.