modena

Express server wrapper that allows exposing multiple express web applications with in the same express instance, while keeping them isolated from each other.

Usage

To use modena to host one or more apps a new app must be created (let's call it host-app). All the web applications that need to be exposed from the host-app (let's call them guest-apps) must be placed in the apps folder. Also, all the additional dependencies (i.e. anyone not included in modena dependencies) used in the guest-apps need to be installed in the host-app.

Each guest-app will be exposed in the url of the host-app plus the name of the folder in which it is located under apps. For example, in the following example (file structure of a sample host-app), if the host-app is published at localhost:3000, the kinder guest-app will be available at localhost:3000/kinder. Any other folder located inside the apps folder will be also exposed in the corresponding url.

.  
├── _apps  
│   └── _kinder  
|       ├── public  
|       ├── views  
|       ├── index.js  
|       ├── package.json  
|       └── package-lock.json  
├── index.js  
├── package.json  
└── package-lock.json  

Also if kinder guest-app is using, let's say, sequelize (or any other dependency not included in modena), sequelize will need to be installed in the host-app as well. This must be done for each guest-app hosted in the host-app.

The host-app index.js looks like this

const { runServer } = require('modena');

/* Configuration should be stored in a separate file not tracked by git */
const config = { ... };

runServer(config);

and it gets up and running in the usual way

npm install

node index.js # or 'npm start' if the start script has been defined in the package.json

For examples of applications that can run on modena see modena-examples. Currently there are two ways to expose a web application with modena:

• Defining and index.js that exports a function that returns an express router (or a Promise returning and express router)
• Placing static files in a folder called public inside the guest-app folder (the public folder name can be customized through a modena-config.json file in the root folder of the guest-app)