We have an Apache Webserver installed on a machine which also serves pages using Perl.
For a project I've decided to use Node.js instead of Perl/Ruby. Just wondering if it's possible to use Apache as my webserver (so it serves the pages) and use Node.js to dynamically create the web pages (this is for a web app I am creating)?
So in other words can they work hand in hand just like Apache/Perl or Apache/PHP etc..
Hosting a nodejs site through apache can be organized with apache proxy module.
It's better to start nodejs server on localhost with default port 1337
Enable proxy with a command:
sudo a2enmod proxy proxy_http
Do not enable proxying with ProxyRequests until you have secured your server. Open proxy servers are dangerous both to your network and to the Internet at large. Setting ProxyRequests to Off does not disable use of the ProxyPass directive.
Configure /etc/apche2/sites-availables with
<VirtualHost *:80>
ServerAdmin admin@site.com
ServerName site.com
ServerAlias www.site.com
ProxyRequests off
<Proxy *>
Order deny,allow
Allow from all
</Proxy>
<Location />
ProxyPass http://localhost:1337/
ProxyPassReverse http://localhost:1337/
</Location>
</VirtualHost>
and restart apache2 service.
No. NodeJS is not available as an Apache module in the way mod-perl and mod-php are, so it's not possible to run node "on top of" Apache. As hexist pointed out, it's possible to run node as a separate process and arrange communication between the two, but this is quite different to the LAMP stack you're already using.
As a replacement for Apache, node offers performance advantages if you have many simultaneous connections. There's also a huge ecosystem of modules for almost anything you can think of.
From your question, it's not clear if you need to dynamically generate pages on every request, or just generate new content periodically for caching and serving. If its the latter, you could use separate node task to generate content to a directory that Apache would serve, but again, that's quite different to PHP or Perl.
Node isn't the best way to serve static content. Nginx and Varnish are more effective at that. They can serve static content while Node handles the dynamic data.
If you're considering using node for a web application at all, Express should be high on your list. You could implement a web application purely in Node, but Express (and similar frameworks like Flatiron, Derby and Meteor) are designed to take a lot of the pain and tedium away. Although the Express documentation can seem a bit sparse at first, check out the screen casts which are still available here: http://expressjs.com/2x/screencasts.html They'll give you a good sense of what express offers and why it is useful. The github repository for ExpressJS also contains many good examples for everything from authentication to organizing your app.
Although there are a lot of good tips here I'd like to answer the question you asked:
So in other words can they work hand in hand just like Apache/Perl or Apache/PHP etc..
YES, you can run Node.js on Apache along side Perl and PHP IF you run it as a CGI module. As of yet, I am unable to find a mod-node for Apache but check out: CGI-Node for Apache here http://www.cgi-node.org/ .
The interesting part about cgi-node is that it uses JavaScript exactly like you would use PHP to generate dynamic content, service up static pages, access SQL database etc. You can even share core JavaScript libraries between the server and the client/browser.
I think the shift to a single language between client and server is happening and JavaScript seems to be a good candidate.
A quick example from cgi-node.org site:
<? include('myJavaScriptFile.js'); ?>
<html>
<body>
<? var helloWorld = 'Hello World!'; ?>
<b><?= helloWorld ?><br/>
<? for( var index = 0; index < 10; index++) write(index + ' '); ?>
</body>
</html>
This outputs:
Hello World!
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
You also have full access to the HTTP request. That includes forms, uploaded files, headers etc.
I am currently running Node.js through the cgi-node module on Godaddy.
CGI-Node.org site has all the documentation to get started.
I know I'm raving about this but it is finally a relief to use something other than PHP. Also, to be able to code JavaScript on both client and server.
Hope this helps.
The common method for doing what you're looking to do is to run them side by side, and either proxy requests from apache to node.js based on domain / url, or simply have your node.js content be pulled from the node.js port. This later method works very well for having things like socket.io powered widgets on your site and such.
If you're going to be doing all of your dynamic content generation in node however, you might as well just use node.js as your primary webserver too, it does a very good job at serving both static and dynamic http requests.
See:
You can always do something shell-scripty like:
#!/usr/bin/node
var header = "Content-type: text/plain\n";
var hi = "Hello World from nodetest!";
console.log(header);
console.log(hi);
exit;
While doing my own server side JS experimentation I ended up using teajs. It conforms to common.js, is based on V8 AND is the only project that I know of that provides 'mod_teajs' apache server module.
In my opinion Node.js server is not production ready and lacks too many features - Apache is battle tested and the right way to do SSJS.
If you're using PHP you can funnel your request to Node scripts via shell_exec, passing arguments to scripts as JSON strings in the command line. Example call:
<?php
shell_exec("node nodeScript.js"); // without arguments
shell_exec("node nodeScript.js '{[your JSON here]}'"); //with arguments
?>
The caveat is you need to be very careful about handling user data when it goes anywhere near a command line. Example nightmare:
<?php
$evilUserData = "'; [malicious commands here];";
shell_exec("node nodeScript.js '{$evilUserData}'");
?>