Skills Guild: P.O.C Testing - RESTful API and Data Persistance

Status: COMPLETE

Technologies Used/ Tested:

• Node
• Express
• PostgresSQL (pgsql) - Relational Database
• Docker - when implemented will create the Databse # Based on https://hub.docker.com/_/postgres
• User Authentication (JWT) - Handled by Firebase Admin
• Logs
• Enviroment Variables

Packages Used:

• Express
• node-postgres (pg)
• body-parser
• dotenv
• nodemon (--save-dev)
• helmet
• cors
• bcrypt password/ JWT encryption
• pg-hstore (needed for sequelize)
• sequelize (use Javascript instead of SQL to communicate with Database)
• sequelize-cli (--save-dev) useful command line tools for development

To Do:

• dockerize database image to avoid installing postgres on every machine
• only return the .rows entry from the database responses
• add pgadmin to the docker image to interact with the database (to query database without installing postgres)
• look into using the sequelize package: https://sequelize.org/master/manual/getting-started.html
• only create tables if they do not exist | add line DROP TABLE IF EXISTS name
• create a drop script for all tables with the specified name Will jsut delete tables with the above line for now
• create a test script to check if all routes are working
• start adding middleware to test (sanitization, security)
• add encrypted passwords for users (bcrypt, JWT auth) Firebase Authentication (supports JWT, encryption, multi-factor authentication)
• add logging support from packages like winston ~~or debug~~~

Steps to Run:

1. run the command 'npm i' to install all dependancies 2. install postgres sql following the instructions below Removed, now done through docker
2. run the commands needed to start

Commands to Run:

# To Start:
npm i
docker-compose up -d # to create database image
# make sure .env file is set with the password variable
npm run db:create # to create the databases specified in database/config.js
npm start

Then using an application like Postman you can create a json object like below and test the POST route with an object creation and then test the other routes to confirm successful set up. >

API Routes:

example: locahost:300/users

• HOST:PORT/users GET POST
• HOST:PORT/users/:id GET PUT DELETE
• Example JSON object for the User Routes, there is no security for routes

{
  "email": "email@email.ca",
  "firstName": "First",
  "lastName": "Last",
  "age": 26,
  "password": "somePassword"
}

Commands to Remember:

# initiallize sequlize folder structure conviently with the following command
# creates the folders for /config /models /migrations /seeders
npx sequelize-cli init

# create a model, names user with the attributes firstName, lastName and Email, this
# format can be used to create the starter model file for any data structure
npx sequelize-cli model:generate --name User --attributes firstName:string,lastName:string,email:string

# run all migrations that were generated from new models or attributes
npx sequelize-cli db:migrate
npx sequelize-cli migration:generate --name NAME # create a starter migration file for a new column

# to create seeder files (seeders will be used to create initla/ test data for the database)
# useful during development but not needed for the final product
sequelize-cli seed:generate --name NAME # create the starter seed file with the name specified
sequelize-cli db:seed:all # run all sedder files

Steps to Install PostgresSQL (Version 12):

• Once Docker is setup we may not need to do this, still testing

• Link: https://www.postgresql.org/download/macosx/

When you install the database make sure you install it with the following credentials - Port: 5432, Password: password, User: postgres. Some of these may just be by default so don't worry if they don't pop up while installing. Once Installed open your pgAdmin and create a database

Helmet Explanation:

helmet adds the following security:

• contentSecurityPolicy
• dnsPrefetchControl
• expectCt
• frameguard
• hidePoweredBy
• hsts
• ieNoOpen
• noSniff
• permittedCrossDomainPolicies
• referrerPolicy
• xssFilter