💾Sample Web App

This is the same sample web app deployed on https://sample.techup.live

In this exercise, we will teach you how to:

1. Create a GitHub repository to store your sample code (in Git files)

2. Upload ("commit and push") your HTML + CSS + JS code to GitHub

3. Connect a sample website to a database on Postgres

This exercise is meant to simulate how you would deploy your live website onto the Internet.

Web technologies powering the Sample Web App

The Sample Web App is hosted on Render.com, a cloud-based application hosting platform with the following components:

• Frontend: HTML, CSS and Javascript

• Backend: NodeJS, Express, EJS

• Database: Postgres

Extremely simple System architecture of Sample Web App

Sign in to GitHub and Render

You will need to be signed in to GitHub and Render.com before you setup the Sample Web Application. For instructions on how to sign up for a GitHub and Render account respectively, please refer to the following pages.

Note: You will need to create a GitHub account first before creating a Render account. You will be using the "Sign up with GitHub" option when creating an account on Render.

GitHubRender

Instructions on setting up your sample web app

If you prefer to watch a video of this setup you may watch it here instead.

1. Create a new GitHub Repository

• Go to https://github.com/new to create a new repository

• Type in your own repository name (this could be any name)

• The description for your repository can be empty

• Your repository should by default be Public

• Ensure that you check the "Add a README file"

• Ensure that you select Node as the .gitignore template

• The license can be at it's default setting of None

• Note that your default branch may be called "master" or "main", this is okay and you can leave it (mine is currently set as "develop").

• Click on "Create repository" to create your new GitHub Repository

A sample of the options selected before clicking "Create repository"

2. Open your newly created repository in Codespaces

• You should have been re-directed to your newly created repository

• Click on the green "Code" button, select the "Codespaces" tab and click "Create Codespace on develop". (Note: your branch may be called "master" or "main" and this is fine)

Click on create codespace to open up codespaces for your repository

3. Download the source code and unzip the file

• Your GitHub Codespace should have opened up in a new tab after creating a codespace in the previous step.

Click on the link below to download the source code for the sample app here and unzip the file:

74KB

techup-sample-blog-9apr.zip

archive

You should see the following files and folders after unzipping the zip file  

4. Drag and drop sample app code into Codespaces

• After completing Step 2, a new tab should have opened with your Codespace similar to the image shown below.

Your Codespace for your newly created GitHub repository

• Drag and drop all files and folders in Step 3 into the sidebar of your Codespace. IMPORTANT: Ensure that you select all the files and folders INSIDE the unzipped file, do not upload the whole zip file (see the below images if you are unsure).

Select all the files and folders INSIDE the unzipped file to upload to Codespace

Drop the selected folders and files in the section marked by the red box

Ensure you drag and drop the correct files in the right location

• This uploads the sample web app source code to your Codespace

• After dragging and dropping, your Codespace should look like this with the following files in the sidebar

Note the newly added folders of "prisma", "public", "views" and files "package-lock.json", "package.json", "server.js"

5. Commit & Push to your repository

• Click on the Source Control icon (the icon which has blue numbers on it, in the image above it's the third tab on the left)

• Enter a commit message of "Uploaded sample code"

• Click on the dropdown next to "Commit" and click on "Commit & Push".

• Note that you will have to click on the drop down arrow for "Commit & Push" to show up

Click on the Source Control tab, write a commit message and click on "Commit & Push" from the drop down list

• If the following pop-up appears, select "Always"

Select "Always" should this pop-up appear after clicking "Commit & Push"

• Another pop up may appear at the bottom right of your screen, select the option of "Yes"

• Check that your files are in your GitHub repository by going to https://github.com and selecting the repository you created in Step 1

• You should now see that there are the newly uploaded files in this repository

6. Create a new PostgreSQL database on Render

• Go to https://dashboard.render.com/new/database to create a new PostgreSQL database on Render.

• Type in a Name for your PostgreSQL instance (I've named mine techup-sample-database)

• Leave the Database field blank

• Leave the User field blank

• Change the Region to "Singapore (Southeast Asia)

• Leave PostgreSQL Version as the default value of 16

• Leave the Datadog API Key field blank

• Change your instance type to FREE

• Click on "Create Database"

• Your database should now be created (after about 30 seconds)

• Scroll down to the section on Connections and take note of the External Database URL

• Copy this External Database URL to a blank word document (or anywhere else such as Notepad) as you will be using it later to add it as an environment variable.

• IMPORTANT: PLS ENSURE YOU HAVE COPIED THIS URL AS YOU NEED IT LATER.

7. Create a new Web Service on Render

• Go to https://dashboard.render.com/create?type=web to create a new Web Service (alternatively you may also click on the purple New + button at the top of the page and select Web Service)

• Ensure "Build and deploy from a Git repository" is selected then click Next

• On the right column you will need to click on "+ Connect Account" to connect your GitHub account to Render.

• Click on "Connect" for the repository name which your created in Step 1

• Leave the Name field as it's default value

• Ensure that the Region is set to "Singapore (Southeast Asia)"

• Ensure that your Branch is selected (yours may be called "master" or "main")

• Leave the Root Directory field blank

• Leave the Runtime as "Node"

• Change the Build Command to yarn; npx prisma db push; npx prisma generate

• Add the Start Command of node server.js

• Change the Instance Type to FREE

• Add a new Environment Variable of name DATABASE_URL with the value of your copied External Database URL in Step 6. (If you have misplaced this URL, not to worry. Go to https://dashboard.render.com/ and click on your database. Scroll down and simply copy the External Database URL again.)

• Click on the "Create Web Service" button to start deploying

• You will be redirected to a new page which shows the logs of the server build happening. It would take approximately 2-4mins for the the server to full deploy your app.

• Your app is deployed once you see the line "==> Your service is live 🎉" in the logs.

8. Accessing your newly deployed web application

• At the top of the same deploy page with the logs, you will see a URL (in my case it is https://techup-blog.onrender.com). Click on this link and it will bring you to your web application.

• You should now be able to view the sample web app which you have deployed on your own Render server!

• Have fun playing around with the sample web app by Adding and Deleting blog posts!

Optional: How do I view what is inside my Postgres database which I created on Render.com?

1. Download and install TablePlus from https://tableplus.com/

2. Open TablePlus and click on the + icon to add a new connection

3. Click on Import from URL

4. Paste the External Database URL (which you copied earlier when setting up Postgres) into the text field then click Import

5. Click on Connect (you may rename the "Name" field or leave it as it's default)

6. You have now successfully connected to the database from TablePlus and you may click on the Post table in the left sidebar to view the contents