conFusion Server

Learning server side development with Express and MongoDB.

In this project, I have used the Express Framework to develop the server side API for my React Client Application

API Endpoints Implemented

1. Dishes
2. Leaders
3. Promotions
4. Users
5. Favorites
6. Comments

How To Run

To start using this application, go to your terminal, in the root directory of this project, and type

npm install package.json

This will install all the packages needed to successfully start up the application.

You will also need to go and install Mongoose Database in your computer as we are using Mongo as our backend database with our Express application.

Once you have installed all the necessary prerequisites, in your command prompt, type:

mongod --dbpath="<path>\data" --bind_ip 127.0.0.1  --- (This is for Windows Only)

Once your Mongo database is successfully running, open up a new terminal and type:

npm start

This will successfully run the server side application on https://localhost:3443/

If you open it up in the browser you will get the error thrown by the browser that the certificate used by the server is unverified, ignore that warning and continue as we are using a self signed certificate for this application.

Populate Mongo Database

When you first start your application, your Mongo database will be empty. We need to populate it with the compulsory data so that we can run our client side React application successfully.

To do this, I have provided a folder in the root directory of the project called populate_database. Inside that folder, I have added three JSON files that contain the data that we need.

Use those files to add data for the following components

• Dishes
• Leaders
• Promotions

Populate via Postman

To add data to the Mongo database via Postman, perform the following steps

1. Create a table by the name users in the database directly.
2. Add an admin user. Make sure to check the users model to find out how to create an admin user.
3. Using Postman, hit the https://localhost:3443/users/login endpoint. Provide your username & password in the body of the request in JSON format.
4. The response will return a token value. Save this token as you will need it when adding data to the database via Postman. Each POST request, requires this token as authorization in the header.

   - Authorization: bearer <token>
   

5. Checks are in place to make sure that, any non admin user cannot add the above mentioned data in the database.

Once this is all done, your server side application is ready to serve.