How to run multiple StrongLoop LoopBack apps on the same server?

Question

I'm currently running two StrongLoop LoopBack apps (Nodejs apps) on a single server with different ports. Both apps were created using slc lb project and slc lb model from the command line.

Is it possible to run these apps on a single ports with different path and/or subdomain? If it is, how do I do that on a Linux machine?

Example:

http://api.server.com:3000/app1/ for first app.

http://api.server.com:3000/app2/ for second app.

thanks.

Answer 1

Since LoopBack applications are regular Express applications, you can mount them on a path of the master app.

var app1 = require('path/to/app1');
var app2 = require('path/to/app2');

var root = loopback(); // or express();
root.use('/app1', app1);
root.use('/app2', app2);
root.listen(3000);

The obvious drawback is high runtime coupling between app1 and app2 - whenever you are upgrading either of them, you have to restart the whole server (i.e. both of them). Also a fatal failure in one app brings down the whole server.

The solution presented by @fiskeben is more robust, since each app is isolated.

On the other hand, my solution is probably easier to manage (you have only one Node process instead of nginx + per-app Node processes) and also allows you to configure middleware shared by both apps.

var root = loopback();
root.use(express.logger());
// etc.

root.use('/app1', app1);
root.use('/app2', app2);
root.listen(3000);

Answer 2

You would need some sort of proxy in front of your server, for example nginx. nginx will listen to a port (say, 80) and redirect incoming requests to other servers on the machine based on some rules you define (hostname, path, headers, etc).

I'm no expert on nginx but I would configure it something like this:

server {
  listen: 80;
  server_name api.server.com;
  location /app1 {
    proxy_pass http://localhost:3000
  }
  location /app2 {
    proxy_pass http://localhost:3001
  }
}

nginx also supports passing query strings, paths and everything else, but I'll leave it up to you to put the pieces together :)

Look at the proxy server documentation for nginx.