CouchDB cross-domain access from XMLHttpRequest?

Question

Currently, web application need to offer some kind of cross-domain HTTP header to access data on other domain: http://openfontlibrary.org/wiki/Web_Font_linking_and_Cross-Origin_Resource_Sharing

Is there any way to configure CouchDB to support unlimited cross-domain access? (it may use apache httpd internally) I'm using the db in-house purpose only.

Unfortunately the link is dead by now and returs a 404 error page. — MKroehnert, Sep 04 '13 at 12:03
@MKroehnert Oh. And it's making me crazy that I cannot even remember what I wanted to do three years ago. — eonil, Sep 04 '13 at 17:31

score 14 · Answer 1 · answered Oct 23 '10 at 09:36

The easiest way I found to solve it is by using locally installed Apache Web Server with enabled mod_proxy module and configured ProxyPass directive.

Let start with basic setup

I have Apache Web Server installed on http://127.0.0.1:8181, not configured yet
I have CouchDB installed on http://127.0.0.1:5984/
I have index.html deployd on Apache on: http://localhost:8181/couchdb.html.

index.html has the following content

<html>
<script src="http://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1.4.2/jquery.min.js" type="text/javascript"></script>
<script type="text/javascript">

var http = XMLHttpRequest();
http.open('GET', 'http://127.0.0.1:5984/_all_dbs', true); // ! WE WILL CHANGE THIS LINE
http.onreadystatechange = function() {
    if (http.readyState == 4 && http.status == 200) {
        console.debug('it works');
    }
};
http.send(null)
</script>
<head><title>Test Access to CouchDB</title></head>
<body>
</body>
</html>

If you try it just now it will not work because of the cross domain problem (in this instance ports don't match 8181 != 5984).

How to fix it

configure Apache (apache_home/conf/httpd.conf)
- uncomment LoadModule proxy_module modules/mod_proxy.so
- uncomment LoadModule proxy_http_module modules/mod_proxy_http.so
- add ProxyPass /couchdb http://127.0.0.1:5984 (as top level property like ServerAdmin)
- restart Apache
modify index.html
- replace http.open('GET', 'http://127.0.0.1:5984/_all_dbs', true); with http.open('GET', '/couchdb/_all_dbs', true);

Try now and you should see 'it works' output in the javascript console (I used Firebug Console)

score 9 · Accepted Answer · answered Aug 29 '10 at 06:24

9

You could use a CouchDB show function to set the Access-Control-Allow-Origin header.


function(doc, req) {
  return {
    body : 'whatever',
    headers : {
      "Access-Control-Allow-Origin": "\"*\""
    }
  }
}

More info on show functions here: http://guide.couchdb.org/draft/show.html

answered Aug 29 '10 at 06:24

BenD

821
5
8

this unfortunately doesn't support POST, PUT and DELETE :( is there a way to support these methods? – Misha Reyzlin Sep 07 '11 at 23:22

score 4 · Answer 3 · edited Dec 13 '13 at 14:40

4

CouchDB 1.3 solves this with CORS: https://wiki.apache.org/couchdb/CORS

edited Dec 13 '13 at 14:40

xenoterracide

16,274
24
118
243

answered Apr 13 '13 at 22:22

Costa Michailidis

7,691
15
72
124

Notice for all installing couchdb on debian/ubuntu via package manager. As of today (10-Oct-2014) the version you will get is 1.2 and it does NOT support CORS options. If you want to use them you have to install never version from sources. It took me a bit to realise why my CORS settings did not work, and the reason was I've installed it via apt-get install couchdb and it was version 1.2. – szydan Oct 10 '14 at 09:38

xenoterracide · Answer 4 · 2013-12-13T15:23:50.087

3

you should enable CORS in CouchDB > 1.3. This is as simple as editing your default.ini and setting enable_cors = true and then modifying origins under the [cors] section to have the top level urls you need. For example I had to do the following to whitelist my local grunt server.

enable_cors = true
[cors]
origins = http://127.0.0.1:9000

to fully answer this question though you'd want to set

origins = *

though this could be argued to be a vulnerability, and you should probably restrict the origins more.

edited Dec 13 '13 at 15:23

answered Dec 13 '13 at 15:15

xenoterracide

16,274
24
118
243

Notice for all installing couchdb on debian/ubuntu via package manager. As of today (10-Oct-2014) the version you will get is 1.2 and it does NOT support CORS options. If you want to use them you have to install never version from sources. It took me a bit to realise why my CORS settings did not work, and the reason was I've installed it via apt-get install couchdb and it was version 1.2. – szydan Oct 10 '14 at 09:39

score 3 · Answer 5 · answered Feb 25 '11 at 02:57

3

Eonil, I want Cross-Domain access too, but is not supported by CouchDB, you can vote for that feature to be implemented here: https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/COUCHDB-431

ps: that feature request has been created on 23/Jul/09 :( I hope they hear us.

answered Feb 25 '11 at 02:57

Benja

4,099
1
30
31

Thanks for letting me know it. I've voted up! I think HTTP REST protocol feature is just such a syntactic sugar things. convenient feature should be offered simultaneously. but I don't expect CouchDB people do this because I'm guessing they're doing some kind of business already doesn't need care of regular users. And I recommend you check *OrientDB* also for offering fast, convenient HTTP REST interface. However I've decided to go back to PostgreSQL. – eonil Feb 25 '11 at 03:09
Thanks! I didn't know about OrientDB, it's feature list seems very interesting, In my case I found HTTP REST useful (or required) as I plan to access the db storage from the client browser using jQuery. What I'm founding most frustating about CouchDB is that static views using MapReduce is the only query mechanism! – Benja Feb 28 '11 at 04:45

score 1 · Answer 6 · answered Jan 08 '12 at 07:52

The way I have solved this is to write a 2 line Rebol wrapper CGI and then ask my Ajax in Jquery to call my CGI instead of the URL for getting data from Couchdb:

Rebol [

  {wrapper to overcome cross-domain fetching of data from couchdb}
 ]
print "Content-type: application/json^/"  ;text/plain^/"
print read http://127.0.0.1:5984/syncspace/_design/vals/_view/xxxx?group=true

score 1 · Answer 7 · answered Feb 02 '12 at 07:53

I made a list that returns JSONp...but still read only support

"jsonp": "function(head, req) {
    var row;
    var rows=[];
    while(row = getRow()){
        rows.push(row);
    }
    rj = JSON.stringify({\"rows\" : rows,\"total_rows\":rows.length});
    return req.query.callback+\"(\"+rj+\");\";
}",

CouchDB cross-domain access from XMLHttpRequest?

7 Answers7

Linked