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Deploy PERN Fullstack App on Heroku and Netlify
This article will walk you through how to deploy a PERN full-stack app with automatic deployment.
Prerequisites
Heroku account
Heroku CLI
Netlify account
PostgreSQL database
What is PERN?
The PERN stack consists of PostgreSQL, Express, React, and Node. With the Express.js framework, PostgreSQL is used as a backend database. React.js serves as the frontend, and Node.js serves as the backend server.
Deployment Process
Fork this repository to get started.
Take a look at the code provided. There are two folders:
client — which contains the front-end code built with React.js, and
server — which has the backend developed using Express.js
Let’s make sure the app is running well locally.
Change directory to the server and install the dependencies
cd server
npm install
Open a new terminal. Change directory to the client and install dependencies
cd client
npm install
Create database
Since we are using PostgreSQL for the database. Make sure you have it installed.
Open your terminal and login into Postgres
psql -U postgres
Enter postgres as password.
Create a database named yelp and connect to it.
create database yelp;
\c yelp
We only need two tables for the app.
Create restaurants table
CREATE TABLE restaurants (
id BIGSERIAL NOT NULL PRIMARY KEY,
name VARCHAR(50) NOT NULL,
location VARCHAR(50) NOT NULL,
price_range INT NOT NULL check(
price_range >= 1
AND price_range <= 5
)
);
Create the second table, reviews
CREATE TABLE reviews (
id BIGSERIAL NOT NULL PRIMARY KEY,
restaurant_id BIGINT REFERENCES restaurants(id) ON DELETE CASCADE,
name VARCHAR(50) NOT NULL,
review TEXT NOT NULL,
rating INT NOT NULL check(
rating >= 1
AND rating <= 5
)
);
Populate a row in the restaurants table.
INSERT INTO restaurants(name, location, price_range)
VALUES ('Iya Toyosi Canteen', 'Sagamu', 3);
Set environment variables
Change directory into the server folder and create a .env file. Add the following contents.
PG_USER=postgres
PG_PASSWORD=postgres
PG_HOST=localhost
PG_PORT=5432
PG_DATABASE=yelp
PORT=7000
Start the app
Open your terminal and navigate to the client folder. Start the client.
npm start
Open a new terminal and navigate to the server folder and start the server.
npm start
Open your browser and go to http://localhost:3000 to see the app running like the screenshot below. You can play around with it.
Server Deployment Process
Let’s start with deploying the server on Heroku.
Visit Heroku and create an account if you don’t have one.
Install the Heroku CLI.
Open your terminal and run the
heroku logincommand after installing the CLI. To complete your login, you will be prompted to enter any key to navigate your web browser. The CLI will then automatically log you in.-
Create a new Heroku app
heroku create
Heroku will generate a random name for your app or pass a parameter to specify your own app name.
heroku create your-app-name
The output
The app name is alluring-bryce-canyon-75245, and the URL to view the app is https://alluring-bryce-canyon-75245.herokuapp.com/. Relax, it won’t work yet.
Setup Heroku Postgres Database
To create a Postgres database, run this command in your terminal
heroku addons:create heroku-postgresql:hobby-dev --app your-app-name
This will create a database and sets a DATABASE_URL environment variable.
Run command heroku addons to check the new addon you just created. You will see the Postgres database created with a name generated automatically, for example postgresql-pointy-04867
nameless-journey-88760 postgresql-pointy-04867 heroku-postgresql:hobby-dev free created
To create the tables in the Postgres database, log into the Heroku database
heroku pg:psql database-name --app your-app-name
Copy and paste the contents from server/config/db.sql to create the two tables and insert a row.
Don’t forget to replace the database name and app name with your own Heroku info.
Test the app locally.
Run
heroku local web
Running this will show you how it will run on Heroku. Open http://localhost:7000/api/v1/restaurants to see the app running locally.
Deploy the server
Finally, it is time to deploy the server on Heroku.
Open your terminal. From the root folder of the project, run this command
heroku git:remote -a alluring-bryce-canyon-75245
You can replace alluring-bryce-canyon-75245 with anything, preferable your Heroku app name.
To push the code, specifically, the server folder, run
git subtree push --prefix server heroku main
The server should be up and running now. Visit https://your-heroku-app-name/api/v1/restaurants
Automate server deployment from a subfolder
Since our project has two folders, server and client, we can let Heroku know the path that leads to the server folder. We won’t have to run the above command every time we want to deploy the server.
Go to the Heroku dashboard and choose the app you are working on
Click on the Settings tab. You will see the Config Vars section. Click on reveal vars.
Set the input with placeholder KEY with
PROJECT_PATHand the input with placeholder VALUE withserverand click on Add.Still on the Settings tab, you must add a Buildpack that instructs Heroku to locate your folder.
Under the Config Vars section, you will see the Buildpack section. Click on add Buildpack and enter https://github.com/timanovsky/subdir-heroku-buildpack.git as the URL. Save changes.
Ensure it’s at the top of the Buildpack chain (drag the lines on the left to move it above any other Buildpacks you’ve added).
Next, we will enable automatic deployment. To enable it, you must connect the GitHub repository of the project.
Go to the deploy tab. From the deployment method, choose GitHub.
Search and connect the Github repo.
Finally, enable automatic deployment.
Anytime you run git push , the server will deploy automatically. You don’t have to run the below command anymore.
git subtree push --prefix server heroku main
Client Deployment Process
Before deploying, open the project folder and navigate to client/src/apis. Open the RestaurantFinder.js file.
Replace “https://alluringbrycecanyon75245.herokuapp.com/api/v1/restaurants" with “https://your-heroku-app-url/api/v1/restaurants"
Commit the change and push.
Let’s get started
Go to Netlify and login into your account. Create if you don’t have one.
After logging in, click on the button
new site from gitChoose your git provider.
Choose the repository you want to deploy.
Under Basic Build Settings, fill the inputs as below.
Click on Deploy site.
After deploying successfully, you will see a link to preview the app.
Netlify also supports automatic deployment. By default, it is enabled.
Anytime you run git push, automatic deployment will start for both Heroku(server) and Netlify(client).
That’s all! You’ve just deployed a full-stack PERN web app successfully.
References
Automated heroku deploy from subfolder
How To Deploy a Full-Stack MERN App with Heroku/Netlify — DEV Community 👩💻👨💻
Top comments (1)
I think prisma ORM is a better way than writing SQL queries