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StrongLoop Node.js API Platform

StrongLoop's Node API platform consists of:

If you are developing a new Node application or API, use the  LoopBack  framework.  It provides codeless API composition, isomorphic models, mobile and AngularJS SDKs, security, and a host of additional evolving features with a thriving community; see the  LoopBackJS Google Group .

If you have an existing Node application, see Operating Node applications for more information on StrongLoop Node devops solutions.

General prerequisites

StrongLoop Arc and slc run on all StrongLoop supported platforms: Windows, Mac OS, and Linux.   Note however, that StrongLoop Process Manager does not run on Windows.

StrongLoop Arc has been tested and verified in Chrome browsers; however, it should also run in:

  • Firefox
  • Safari
  • Internet Explorer 10+
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Minimum recommended screen resolution for StrongLoop Arc is 1280px x 720px.

DevOps requirements and restrictions

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StrongLoop Process Manager does not run on Windows.

Certain StrongLoop devops features have additional requirements and restrictions, as noted below.

Build and deploy

To deploy an application using Git, you must have the Git source code management tool.

Configuration on Windows

By default, Git on Windows does not support paths longer than 260 characters; therefore, to avoid errors you must enable long paths with the following command:

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You cannot deploy an application to a Windows system. However, you can build and deploy on a Windows system and deploy from there to a Linux or Mac system.

Profiling

To use StrongLoop Profiling, you must:

You cannot generate profiles for applications running on Windows 8 systems, due to a known issue in Node.

Metrics

To generate performance metrics, you must:

  • Have a working C++ compiler toolchain on the system running the application.  See Installing compiler tools for more information.
  • Get a StrongLoop license key. Request one by emailing sales@strongloop.

Once you have a license key, simply enter these commands: 

where xxxxx is your valid license key string.  This command generates a strongloop.json file for your application containing your license key.  See Viewing metrics with Arc for more information.

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To view metrics in action without getting a license key, follow the instructions in Getting started with arc > View application metrics.

What you're going to do

You're going to run npm install -g strongloop, which installs:

  • The LoopBack framework, including loopback, loopback-datasource-juggler modules, and numerous other related StrongLoop modules, along with modules that they require.
  • The StrongLoop command-line tool, slc, for creating LoopBack applications and for running and managing Node applications.
  • StrongLoop Arc, the unified graphical tool suite for the API lifecycle, including tools for building, profiling and monitoring Node apps.
  • LoopBack Angular command line tools (lb-ng and lb-ng-doc). See AngularJS JavaScript SDK for details.
  • Various other tools, Including Yeoman, the LoopBack Yeoman generators to create and scaffold LoopBack applications, and Grunt, the JavaScript task runner.

Install on your system

Follow the instructions below for your operating system:

Windows

Install Node.js

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If you want features such as CPU profiling, heap memory profiling, performance metrics, object tracking, loggging to syslog, among others, follow the full instructions in Installing Node and StrongLoop on Windows.

Otherwise, you can just download and run the native installer from nodejs.org .  Note that you may see error messages during installation and when running applications with slc.

Reinstall npm

The version of npm installed as part of the Node installation is known to have issues on Windows. To avoid these problems, reinstall npm, which actually installs npm2:

Install StrongLoop

Follow these steps:

  1. Open a Windows Command Prompt.  NOTE: Node does not support Cygwin. You must use the Windows Command Prompt (shell).

  2. Install StrongLoop:

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    During installation, you may see a number of errors from node-gyp and Python if you don't have compiler tools installed. These errors only prevent you from performing certain monitoring and management functions; If you need those functions, then install compiler tools before continuing. Otherwise, you can ignore the errors for now.

If you run into any problems, see Installation troubleshooting.

Mac OSX 

Set file and directory privileges

To install Node and StrongLoop, you need to have permission to write to the following directories:

  • /usr/local/bin 
  • /usr/local/lib/node_modules
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If these directories do not exist, you will need to create them.

 Although you can work around this by using sudo, in general, it's not a good idea. Rather, best practice is to explicitly set directory ownership and privileges explicitly as follows:

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Changing privileges like this is appropriate only on your local development system. Never do this on a server system.

These commands make your user account the owner of the /usr/local/bin  and /usr/local/lib/node_modules directories. Then you won't have to use sudo to install Node or install packages globally with npm.  For more information, see How to Node.

Install Node.js

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If you already installed Node, skip this step.

Install Node.js: Download the native installer from nodejs.org .

Install StrongLoop

Follow these steps:

  1. Open a Terminal window.

  2. Enter this command:

    If you didn't set your file and directory privileges as instructed above, this command (not recommended):

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    During installation, you may see a number of errors from node-gyp if you don't have compiler tools installed. These errors only prevent you from performing certain monitoring and management functions such as CPU profiling and Heap memory profiling with slc; If you need those functions, then install compiler tools before continuing. Otherwise, you can ignore the errors for now.

If you run into any problems, see Installation troubleshooting.

Linux

Set file and directory privileges

To install Node and StrongLoop , you need permissions to write to directories:

  • /usr/local/bin 
  • /usr/local/lib/node_modules 
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If these directories do not exist, you will need to create them.

Although you can work around this by using sudo, in general, it's not a good idea. Rather, best practice is to explicitly set directory ownership and privileges explicitly as follows:

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Changing privileges like this is appropriate only on your local development system. Never do this on a server system.

These commands make your user account the owner of the /usr/local/bin  and /usr/local/lib/node_modules directories. Then you won't have to use sudo to install Node or install packages globally with npm.  For more information, see How to Node.

Install Node.js

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If you already installed Node, skip this step.

Install Node.js: See  Installing Node.js via package manager .

Install StrongLoop  

Follow these steps:

  1. Open a terminal window

  2. Enter this command:

    If you didn't set your file and directory privileges as instructed above, you may need to use this command (not recommended):

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    During installation, you may see a number of errors from node-gyp if you don't have compiler tools installed. These errors only prevent you from performing certain monitoring and management functions such as CPU profiling and Heap memory profiling with slc; If you need those functions, then install compiler tools before continuing. Otherwise, you can ignore the errors for now.

If you run into any problems, see Installation troubleshooting.

Confirm installation

Confirm the installation and view slc help by entering this command:

You'll see a standard "man page":

If you see this, then you're good to go!

If not, refer to Installation troubleshooting.

 

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