Deploying on Render

• Make sure your project is not inside another git repo.
• You should have a .gitignore file in your project root with the following in it.

.DS_Store
*.log
*.sqlite
node_modules
.swp
.env
tmp

• You should have a .env in your root with something similar to below content. (Make sure to change the database name)
• Windows users might have a different connection string with their username and password.

DATABASE_URL='postgresql://localhost:5432/goodfoodhunting'
SESSION_SECRET ='mistyrose'

Environmental Variables

1. Ensure your database environmental variables have been set up.
2. Example below: Check if you have updated your port and secret key in server.js file.

const port = process.env.PORT || 3000;

app.use(
  session({
    secret: process.env.SESSION_SECRET || "mistyrose",
    resave: false,
    saveUninitialized: true,
  })
);

3. To start your application in the production environment:

• open your package.json file.
• In the "scripts" section, add "start" key to include the command you want to use for starting your application. It should look something like this:

  "scripts": {
    "start": "node server.js",
    "dev": "nodemon server.js"
  }

Creating a Web Service

1. Go to https://render.com/ and sign up.

2. Log in and click New > Web Service

3. In the Create a new Web Service page, connect your repository from the list of repositories if your Render account has been linked to your GitHub account.

   

4. If your GitHub account was not linked, link the public Git repository URL in the Public Git repository section.

5. Add the Name for your app.

6. Select the appropriate Region according to your location.

7. Runtime - Select Node

8. Build Command - npm install

9. Start Command - npm start

10. Select the Free instance.

11. Create Web Service.

Creating a PostgreSQL Database on Render

1. In the navigation bar, click New > PostgreSQL.

2. Add the Name for your PostgreSQL database.

3. Select the appropriate region as per step 6 for Web Service.

4. PostgreSQL Version - 15

5. Select the Free instance.

6. Create Database.

   

Accessing your PostgreSQL database details

1. Go to your Dashboard and select your database.
2. Scroll down to Connections
3. PSQL Command is what you need to access the database through your CLI/Terminal.
4. Copy your PSQL Command and paste it in your CLI.
5. As your newly created database would be empty, you'll need to create the tables necessary as you did for your local PostgreSQL database.
6. Example:

   CREATE TABLE bread (
     id SERIAL PRIMARY KEY,
     name TEXT,
     image_url TEXT,
   );

Connecting your PostgreSQL database to your Web Service app

1. In your PostgreSQL info page, copy the Internal Database URL
2. Go to your Dashboard and select your Web Service.
3. On the sidebar, click Environment.
4. Select Add Environment Variable.
5. Under Key, put DATABASE_URL and paste the Internal Database URL you copied from the database info as the value. Add SESSION_SECRET as the key and any value that you have provided for it in your app.

Future deployments as you update your app:

Database

Run the psql connection string to connect to the production database like before and then run additional SQL lines.

Source code

Just push your code to Github and it will auto-deploy on Render. If that doesn't work, you can select "manual deploy" on Render's dashboard.

Troubleshooting

Click logs in your Render app's dashboard to see what errors have come up.