Server setup (part 1)#

If your application is still running on http://localhost:3000, you can go to the terminal and cancel the execution by pressing Ctrl+C. We'll no longer need the development server after this lesson.

Creating a server#

To create a server that will host our application, we'll use Heroku since they have a free tier and it's easy to set up. You'll need to install the Heroku Command Line Interface and log in with your Heroku credentials.

First, cd up one level to the root myapp directory. Then run heroku create.

cd ..

heroku create

Next, provision a PostgreSQL database with the following command.

heroku addons:create heroku-postgresql:hobby-dev

Next, create a file called Procfile with the following command.

echo "web: node server/index.js" > Procfile

To ignore the node_modules folder and our environment variables, create a file called .gitignore in the root myapp directory with the following contents.

.env

node_modules

Now create a package.json file using npm. Accept the defaults automatically by using the -y flag.

npm init -y