Step-by-Step nextpalestine Setup: Complete Overview

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Deep Dive into nextpalestine:
A Feature-Rich Open-Source Blogging Platform Built with Next.js and Nest.js

Want to build a beautiful blogging platform with ease? Check out our open source web application nextpalestine!
Effortless blogging platform with a powerful editor, user management, and more. Open source on GitHub!, This presentation will delve into the capabilities of nextpalestine.

nextpalestine is build on a mono-repo structure:

.
├── frontend
│ └── package.json
├── backend
│ └── package.json
└── package.json
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The root package.json:

{ "name": "nextpalestine-monorepo", "version": "0.1.0", "private": true, "license": "GPL", "description": "Blogging platform", "repository": { "type": "git", "url": "<https://github.com/adelpro/nextpalestine.git>" }, "author": "Adel Benyahia <[email protected]>", "authors": ["Adel Benyahia <[email protected]>"], "engines": { "node": ">=18" }, "devDependencies": { "husky": "^8.0.0", "npm-run-all": "^4.1.5" }, "scripts": { "backend": "npm run start:dev -w backend", "frontend": "npm run dev -w frontend", "frontend:prod": "npm run build -w frontend && npm run start:prod -w frontend", "backend:prod": "npm run build -w backend && npm run start:prod -w backend", "dev": "npm-run-all --parallel backend frontend", "start": "npm-run-all --parallel backend:prod frontend:prod", "docker:build": "docker compose down && docker compose up -d --build", "prepare": "husky install" }, "workspaces": ["backend", "frontend"], "lint-staged": { "**/*.{js,jsx,ts,tsx}": ["npx prettier --write", "npx eslint --fix"] }
}
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We are using

npm-run-all package to run multiple commands in concurrency, for example the command start will start two command in parallel backend and frontend .

Husky is used to run pre-commit hooks, if we check the .husky folder in the root folder

.
├── .husky
│ └── _
│ └── pre-commit
├── frontend
│ └── package.json
├── backend
│ └── package.json
└── package.json
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The ./husky folder:

We are using husky to lint fix our code before committing it, and to make this process faster we are using a second package: lint-staged to only lint the staged code (newly added or modified code)


#!/usr/bin/env sh
. "$(dirname -- "$0")/_/husky.sh" # Exit immediately if any command exits with a non-zero status.
set -e echo 'Linting project before committing'
npx lint-staged
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The compose.yaml

This file is used to build a self-hosted dockerized application that we can deploy to any system that run docker.

To properly run deploy our application to docker we have to:

1- Clone our repo: git clone [https://github.com/adelpro/nextpalestine.git](https://github.com/adelpro/nextpalestine.git)

2- Create an .env.production file in the frontend folder aligned to the .env.example (in the same folder).

3- Create an .env.production file in the backend folder aligned to the .env.example (in the same folder).

4- Run: docker compose up -d

We will now explain the compose.yaml file

services: # Fontend: NextJs frontend: env_file: - ./frontend/.env.production container_name: nextpalestine-frontend image: nextpalestine-frontend build: context: ./frontend dockerfile: Dockerfile args: - DOCKER_BUILDKIT=1 ports: - 3540:3540 restart: unless-stopped depends_on: backend: condition: service_healthy volumes: - /app/node_modules # For live reload if the source or env changes - ./frontend/src:/app/src networks: - app-network # Backend: NestJS backend: container_name: nextpalestine-backend image: nextpalestine-backend env_file: - ./backend/.env.production build: context: ./backend dockerfile: Dockerfile args: - DOCKER_BUILDKIT=1 ports: - 3500:3500 restart: unless-stopped depends_on: mongodb: condition: service_healthy volumes: - backend_v_logs:/app/logs - backend_v_public:/app/public - /app/node_modules # For live reload if the source or env changes - ./backend/src:/app/src healthcheck: test: ["CMD-SHELL", "curl -f http://backend:3500/health || exit 1"] interval: 5s timeout: 5s retries: 5 start_period: 20s networks: - app-network # Database: Mongodb mongodb: container_name: mongodb image: mongo:latest restart: unless-stopped ports: - 27018:27017 env_file: - ./backend/.env.production networks: - app-network volumes: - mongodb_data:/data/db - /etc/timezone:/etc/timezone:ro #- type: bind # source: ./mongo-entrypoint # target: /docker-entrypoint-initdb.d/ healthcheck: test: ["CMD", "mongosh", "--eval", "db.adminCommand('ping')"] interval: 5s timeout: 5s retries: 5 start_period: 20s # Database UI: Mongo Express mongo-express: image: mongo-express:1.0.2-20-alpine3.19 container_name: mongo-express restart: always ports: - 8081:8081 env_file: - ./backend/.env.production depends_on: - mongodb networks: - app-network
volumes: backend_v_logs: name: nextpalestine_v_backend_logs backend_v_public: name: nextpalestine_v_backend_public mongodb_data: name: nextpalestine_v_mongodb_data driver: local
networks: app-network: driver: bridge
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As you can see, we have forth images

1- mongo-express:

mongo-express is a web-based MongoDB admin interface

2- mongo:

The official mongo docker image, where we have added a health check, we will need at later in the backend image.

 healthcheck: test: ["CMD", "mongosh", "--eval", "db.adminCommand('ping')"] interval: 5s timeout: 5s retries: 5 start_period: 20s
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We have also loaded the .env file from the backend folder

 env_file: - ./backend/.env.production
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We will need these .env variables:

MONGO_INITDB_ROOT_USERNAME=root
MONGO_INITDB_ROOT_PASSWORD=password
MONGO_DATABASE_NAME=database
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And we are creating a persisted (named) volume to persist data between different builds, the second line is a hack to sync the time zone between the docker image and the host that runs it, it ensures that the timestamps in your database match the host system’s timezone.

 volumes: - mongodb_data:/data/db - /etc/timezone:/etc/timezone:ro
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We have also changed the exposed port to(27018), 27018:27017 this will prevent any conflict with any mongodb database installed in the host system with the default port (27017)

3- backend (Nest.js)

 backend: container_name: nextpalestine-backend image: nextpalestine-backend env_file: - ./backend/.env.production build: context: ./backend dockerfile: Dockerfile args: - DOCKER_BUILDKIT=1 ports: - 3500:3500 restart: unless-stopped depends_on: mongodb: condition: service_healthy volumes: - backend_v_logs:/app/logs - backend_v_public:/app/public - /app/node_modules # For live reload if the source or env changes - ./backend/src:/app/src healthcheck: test: ["CMD-SHELL", "curl -f http://backend:3500/health || exit 1"] interval: 5s timeout: 5s retries: 5 start_period: 20s networks: - app-network
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This image is build on ./backend/Dockerfile using DOCKER_BUILDER=1 argument, this will enhance the build speed and caching.

  • Env variable are load from ./backend/.env.production.
  • It depends on mongodb image, the backend image will not start until the mongo image is fully started and healthy.
  • The backend image has it’s own health check that we will use in the frontend (Next.js) image.
  • We are persisting logs and public folders using named volumes.
  • This volume: /app/node_modules is used to persist node_module.
  • This volume: ./backend/src:/app/src to hot reload the image when ever the code is changed.
  • The port 3500:3500 is used for the backend.

We will now explain the Dockerfile of the backend (in the backend folder)

ARG NODE=node:21-alpine3.19 # Stage 1: builder
FROM ${NODE} AS builder # Combine commands to reduce layers
RUN apk add --no-cache libc6-compat \ && apk add --no-cache curl \ && addgroup --system --gid 1001 nodejs \ && adduser --system --uid 1001 nestjs WORKDIR /app COPY --chown=nestjs:nodejs package*.json ./ RUN --mount=type=cache,target=/root/.yarn YARN_CACHE_FOLDER=/root/.yarn \ yarn install --frozen-lockfile COPY --chown=nestjs:nodejs . . ENV NODE_ENV production # Generate the production build. The build script runs "nest build" to compile the application.
RUN yarn build # Install only the production dependencies and clean cache to optimize image size.
RUN --mount=type=cache,target=/root/.yarn YARN_CACHE_FOLDER=/root/.yarn \ yarn install --production --frozen-lockfile && yarn cache clean USER nestjs # Stage 2: runner
FROM ${NODE} AS runner RUN apk add --no-cache libc6-compat \ && apk add --no-cache curl \ && addgroup --system --gid 1001 nodejs \ && adduser --system --uid 1001 nestjs WORKDIR /app # Set to production environment
ENV NODE_ENV production # Copy only the necessary files
COPY --chown=nestjs:nodejs --from=builder /app/dist ./dist
COPY --chown=nestjs:nodejs --from=builder /app/logs ./logs
COPY --chown=nestjs:nodejs --from=builder /app/public ./public
COPY --chown=nestjs:nodejs --from=builder /app/node_modules ./node_modules
COPY --chown=nestjs:nodejs --from=builder /app/package*.json ./ # Set Docker as non-root user
USER nestjs EXPOSE 3500 ENV HOSTNAME "0.0.0.0" CMD ["node", "dist/main.js"]
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This is a multi-stage docker file, build on Linux alpine, we are first installing an extra package libc6-comat then creating a separate user for our application for an extra security layer.

We are installing curl , we will use it to check if our image is healthy.

Then we copies needed folders with the right permissions

We finally run our application suing node dist/main.js

3- frontend(Nextt.js)

# Args
ARG NODE=node:21-alpine3.19 # Stage 1: builder
FROM ${NODE} AS builder RUN apk add --no-cache libc6-compat \ && addgroup --system --gid 1001 nodejs \ && adduser --system --uid 1001 nextjs WORKDIR /app COPY --chown=nextjs:nodejs package*.json ./ RUN --mount=type=cache,target=/root/.yarn YARN_CACHE_FOLDER=/root/.yarn \ yarn install --frozen-lockfile COPY --chown=nextjs:nodejs . . # Next.js collects completely anonymous telemetry data about general usage.
# Learn more here: https://nextjs.org/telemetry
# Uncomment the following line in case you want to disable telemetry during the build.
ENV NEXT_TELEMETRY_DISABLED 1 ENV NEXT_PRIVATE_STANDALONE true
ENV NODE_ENV production # Generate the production build
RUN yarn build # Install only the production dependencies and clean cache
RUN --mount=type=cache,target=/root/.yarn YARN_CACHE_FOLDER=/root/.yarn \ yarn install --frozen-lockfile --production && yarn cache clean USER nextjs # Stage 2: runner
FROM ${NODE} AS runner RUN apk add --no-cache libc6-compat \ && addgroup --system --gid 1001 nodejs \ && adduser --system --uid 1001 nextjs WORKDIR /app ENV NODE_ENV production # Uncomment the following line in case you want to disable telemetry during runtime. ENV NEXT_TELEMETRY_DISABLED 1 COPY --from=builder /app/public ./public # Set the correct permission for prerender cache
RUN mkdir .next
RUN chown nextjs:nodejs .next # Automatically leverage output traces to reduce image size
# https://nextjs.org/docs/advanced-features/output-file-tracing
# Copy next.conf only if it's not the default
COPY --from=builder --chown=nextjs:nodejs /app/next.config.js ./
COPY --from=builder --chown=nextjs:nodejs /app/package*.json ./
COPY --from=builder --chown=nextjs:nodejs /app/.next/standalone ./ COPY --from=builder --chown=nextjs:nodejs /app/.next/static ./.next/static # Set Docker as non-root user
USER nextjs EXPOSE 3540 ENV PORT 3540 ENV HOSTNAME "0.0.0.0" # server.js is created by next build from the standalone output
# https://nextjs.org/docs/pages/api-reference/next-config-js/output
CMD ["node", "server.js"]
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In this multi-stage Dockerfile:

  • we are using a slim Linux image based on alpine
  • We are creating a new user as an extra security layer
  • We are using a special technique to re-use the yarn cache from preview builds (DOCKER_BUILDKIT must be enabled)

--mount=type=cache,target=/root/.yarn YARN_CACHE_FOLDER=/root/.yarn \

  • We can (optionnaly) disable Next.js telemetry using this line:

ENV NEXT_TELEMETRY_DISABLED 1

  • Then we are building our Next.js as a standalone application and coping the necessary folders
  • We set a custom port: 3540

ENV PORT 3540

  • And starting the app using: node server.js

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