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Documentation Server created by ondecentral

Pre-reqs

Remember if we are hosting static with node, we must run first:

cp -r book static

Assumptions

Cloud instance is running RHEL and has node installed with package management tool dnf
Cloud instance has http-server installed non-globally with npm
Cloud instance has rust installed with dnf and cargo install mdbook has been ran in cd ~
Cloud instance security group has ports 3000-3500 open
Machine does not come with an installation of pm2 that was installed using npm i -g

Install Dev Dependencies

Install pm2 non-globally

npm i pm2

Install rest of of deps

npm i

Create symbolic link for pm2 executable (this won't work on Windows)

ln -s ./node_modules/pm2/bin/pm2 pm2

Verify it works by running the first command below and seeing a table in your command line

./pm2 list
npm run start-host

Then validate server is running on port correctly

./pm2 logs

Day One

Setting Nginx connection to localhost:5060

Day Two

Engineers who have made it past day one, congratulations.

inner-doc-server-rs/
├── app
├── book
└── src
    ├── chapter_1.md
    ├── chapter_2.md
    ├── chapter_3.md
    ├── chapter_4.md
    └── SUMMARY.md

🙆‍♀️ How to run Documentation Server with mdbook

If new dev environment for rust

rustup default stable
cargo install mdbook

mdbook serve

Run this if using the Node Server to Host

mdbook build

If you are attempting to run mdbook in cloud: Make sure you have cargo bin in your path if its a fresh instance

export PATH=$PATH:/home/ec2-user/.cargo/bin

🙆‍♀️ How to run Documentation Server in Prod

npm run start-prod

This will run a daemon on port 3200

pm2 start app/index.js
pm2 logs 0

Validate the logs showing the port number then go to your browser to verify

http://<hostname>:<port>/book

💁 How to use Fullstack App

mdbook build
rm -rf static/book
mv book static
node app/index.js

💁 Ubuntu 20 - Steps Summarized in order

For the cloud nginx config cd into /etc/nginx and check on /sites-available
Use git pull <remote> <branch> for designated stage env
Reminder to not use absolutes for express.static() when needing to run node on output of mdbook build
Lastly make sure nginx is running
If on premise uswest build the book with mdbook build then transfer it to ~/www/uswest
Modify ETC Hosts file

💁 Apple Server - Steps Summarized in order

For the domain connection please cd into /etc/nginx and check on conf.d
Use git pull <remote> <branch> for designated stage env
Lastly make sure nginx is running
If on premise uswest build the book with mdbook build then transfer it to ~/www/uswest
Ensure user and group permissions are set to be 755 so nginx can load pages, otherwise 403
Double check nginx config for user directive which is up one level from event and http
Ensure user and group in directive matches user and group in nginx.conf file
Verify it works by navigating in a browser and expect <ip_addr>:<port> is online
🙅‍ Verify the domain works by going to the domain dot com directly with and without www

How to get started

The directories

app

Documentation server markdown files

src

Documentation and spec

Assume you have the following dependencies

Rust rustc and cargo
Cargo bin in path
mdbook installed via cargo or from source

git clone

then

cd distribution-center

To serve test server

mdbook serve

The src directory is were you write your book in markdown. It contains all the source files, configuration files, etc.

The book directory is where your book is rendered. All the output is ready to be uploaded to a server to be seen by your audience.

The SUMMARY.md file is the most important file, it's the skeleton of your book and is discussed in more detail in another chapter.

Intricacies of serving on a subdomain

If you want to host this documentation server on a subdomain

First we assume nginx has already been set up with HTTPS and SSL. If not, consult the general documentation server
Ensure the order of the sites-enabled/default config file has the subdomain's server block appear first (on the top of the file)
You will need to create redirects, essentially extrapolation of two other server blocks from a standard non-subdomain ssl nginx config
Run sudo nginx -t to test if valid config, then sudo systemctl restart nginx. Verify status of nginx is okay then navigate to /book over HTTPS

Updating the documentation server on a subdomain

git pull
run commands below

mdbook build
rm -rf static/book
mv book static
node app/index.js

Troubleshooting

If you are running into port issues on cloud Ubuntu PM2, typically when running a reverse proxy via Nginx. Try the following

Remove hidden configuration file in home directory rm -rf ~/.pm2

If you are testing subdomains host over ssl and using http-server, it will most likely not work due to cors needing to be enabled (disabled by default)

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