Run Bash Script with Node from client request

Question

I need to make a server-side script run when a user from the browser clicks a button...

I\'ve been researching for a while, and can\'t figure it out.

What we hav

Answer 1

Here's a simple boilerplate for the server (which uses Express, so you might need to install that first: npm install express):

var spawn   = require('child_process').spawn;
var express = require('express');
var app     = express();

app.use(express.static(__dirname));

app.get('/colorsRequest', function(req, res) {
  var command = spawn(__dirname + '/run.sh', [ req.query.color || '' ]);
  var output  = [];

  command.stdout.on('data', function(chunk) {
    output.push(chunk);
  }); 

  command.on('close', function(code) {
    if (code === 0)
      res.send(Buffer.concat(output));
    else
      res.send(500); // when the script fails, generate a Server Error HTTP response
  });
});

app.listen(3000);

You can pass it a color, and it will run the shellscript run.sh (of which it assumes is located in the same directory as the server JS file) with the color passed as argument:

curl -i localhost:3000/colorsRequest?color=green
# this runs './run.sh green' on the server

Here's a boilerplate HTML page (save it as index.html, put it in the same directory as the server code and the shell script, start the server, and open http://localhost:3000 in your browser):

  
    
  
  
    
      
        green
        blue
        yellow
        orange