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A HTTP Proxy Server in 20 Lines of node.js Code

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Re: A HTTP Proxy Server in 20 Lines of node.js Code

#3

Post by simonw »

If anyone's looking for a project, a reusable HTTP proxying library for Node.js with easy hooks for adding pre- and post- checks and transforms would be incredibly useful. Being able to implement API rate limiting and authentication as a Node.js reverse proxy that wraps around an existing web application would be even easier with a well-tested, fully featured proxy library.

Re: A HTTP Proxy Server in 20 Lines of node.js Code

#4

Post by silvestrov »

This is not a server in 20 lines of code, but server configuration in 20 lines (there is no parsing of the http protocols, but only calls into a lib that implements an http proxy).

The examples could be implemented in fewer lines of Apache configuration. I would have been nice with some examples that shows what node.js can do, which can't be done (easily) with Apache.

Re: A HTTP Proxy Server in 20 Lines of node.js Code

#5

Post by zaph0d »

silvestrov wrote: post #4

This is not a server in 20 lines of code, but server configuration in 20 lines (there is no parsing of the http protocols, but only calls into a lib that implements an http proxy). The examples could be implemented in fewer lines of Apache configuration. I would have been nice with some examples that shows what node.js can do, which can't be done (easily) with Apache.

Agreed, the code is trivial, but HTTP is a first-class protocol on node.js. Can't blame Peter for not reinventing the wheel.

Re: A HTTP Proxy Server in 20 Lines of node.js Code

#6

Post by simonw »

silvestrov wrote: post #4

This is not a server in 20 lines of code, but server configuration in 20 lines (there is no parsing of the http protocols, but only calls into a lib that implements an http proxy). The examples could be implemented in fewer lines of Apache configuration. I would have been nice with some examples that shows what node.js can do, which can't be done (easily) with Apache.

I think this does show something that can't be done easily with Apache: scripting decisions about what to proxy in JavaScript, in this case to implement auto-reloading of configuration files for IP filtering and regex-based host blacklisting.

Re: A HTTP Proxy Server in 20 Lines of node.js Code

#7

Post by euroclydon »

Since this is near the top of the HN page, I'd like to ask a question about node.js:

What is it suited for? I read the about section of the node.js homepage, and it says that "Node's goal is to provide an easy way to build scalable network programs." Okay, that sounds cool, and I like Javascript, so I want to see if I can fit it into any projects I'm working on, but then I go on to read: "Almost no function in Node directly performs I/O." Okay again, single thread, no I/O, I can see why it's fast. But what if I need I/O, like from a DB? Does that mean I should not use node.js? What is a suitable method to store and transport data when using node.js? MemCache?

Re: A HTTP Proxy Server in 20 Lines of node.js Code

#8

Post by alunny »

euroclydon wrote: post #7

Since this is near the top of the HN page, I'd like to ask a question about node.js: What is it suited for? I read the about section of the node.js homepage, and it says that "Node's goal is to provide an easy way to build scalable network programs." Okay, that sounds cool, and I like Javascript, so I want to see if I can fit it into any projects I'm working on, but then I go on to read: "Almost no function in Node d…

The core of Node has very few functions that perform I/O, but there's no reason you can't use I/O in your own programs (in the original link, the network stream is read and written out, and also the blacklist file is read, synchronously). The readFileSync call is an anomaly in Node - typically you use evented I/O - open a stream and set listeners/callbacks for particular events.

There are modules developed for most of the major open source databases (I'm not sure what the status of the async MySQL driver is, but there's definitely something you can use).

Re: A HTTP Proxy Server in 20 Lines of node.js Code

#9

Post by simonw »

euroclydon wrote: post #7

Since this is near the top of the HN page, I'd like to ask a question about node.js: What is it suited for? I read the about section of the node.js homepage, and it says that "Node's goal is to provide an easy way to build scalable network programs." Okay, that sounds cool, and I like Javascript, so I want to see if I can fit it into any projects I'm working on, but then I go on to read: "Almost no function in Node d…

Database adapters for Node are beginning to show up - there's an async PostgreSQL one and I think there's one using libdrizzle (which should work for MySQL as well). Since Node speaks HTTP fluently it's great for talking to things like CouchDB, and there's also DBSlayer http://code.nytimes.com/projects/dbslayer which provides an HTTP API for running MySQL SQL queries.

Node + Redis is an awesome combination.

Don't forget APIs - if your application simply hits a bunch of HTTP APIs from other providers (mashup style) Node is a great fit.

Re: A HTTP Proxy Server in 20 Lines of node.js Code

#10

Post by gcampbell »

euroclydon wrote: post #7

Since this is near the top of the HN page, I'd like to ask a question about node.js: What is it suited for? I read the about section of the node.js homepage, and it says that "Node's goal is to provide an easy way to build scalable network programs." Okay, that sounds cool, and I like Javascript, so I want to see if I can fit it into any projects I'm working on, but then I go on to read: "Almost no function in Node d…

The important word in that sentence is "directly". There are plenty of ways to do I/O in node, but they generally involve event-based callbacks so that they don't block the thread.
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