Example MERN Stack

This repo provides a simple MERN stack application to be used in containerization demos. It is intended to NOT be a containerized application, but will be converted as part of demos.

Architecture

This particular application is composed of an Express backend with a React frontend. Data is persisted in a Mongo database. Hence the MERN stack name.

The Express backend is configured to serve static content, allowing the React application to be bundled and deployed with the backend. But, they remain in separate codebases because development for each uses different tooling.

Development

A database

This application requires Mongo. If you haven't yet, install it and then start a database.

mongod

The backend

To start the backend, run the following in the backend directory:

yarn install
yarn dev

The backend runs on localhost:4000

The frontend

To start the frontend, run the following in the client directory:

yarn install
yarn start

The react app will start on localhost:3000.

Deploying

To deploy the application, you will need to do the following:

1. Build the frontend.

   cd frontend
   yarn build
   

2. Copy the artifacts from the newly created/populated frontend/build directory into backend/src/static directory.

3. Deploy the backend directory and start it using node src/index.js. The frontend application will be deployed using the backend.