This is a url shortener app for a MEVN stack application with authentication. This is for a SPA (Single Page Application) workflow that uses the Vite Build tool. This uses cookie based approach for authentication.

URL shortener services are tools that take long URLs and convert them into shorter, more manageable links. These services are particularly useful for sharing links on social media, in emails, or in any context where space is limited. Shortened URLs are easier to remember, type, and share. Additionally, many URL shortener services provide analytics to track the number of clicks, geographic location of the clicks, and other useful data.

Popular URL shortener services include Bitly, TinyURL, and Google's now-defunct goo.gl. These services often offer additional features such as custom short links, link expiration, and password protection. URL shorteners can also help in branding by allowing businesses to create custom short domains that reflect their brand identity.

It includes the following:

• Backend API with Express & MongoDB
• Routes for auth, logout, register, profile, update profile
• JWT authentication stored in HTTP-only cookie
• Protected routes and endpoints
• Custom middleware to check JSON web token and store in cookie
• Custom error middleware
• React frontend to register, login, logout, view profile, and update profile

• Create a MongoDB database and obtain your MongoDB URI - MongoDB Atlas

Rename the .env.example file to .env and add the following

NODE_ENV = development PORT = 5000 MONGO_URI = your mongodb uri JWT_SECRET = 'abc123' 

Change the JWT_SECRET to what you want

npm install cd client npm install 

 # Run frontend (:3000) & backend (:5000) npm run dev # Run backend only npm run server 

# Create frontend prod build cd frontend npm run build 

npm install node-cron 

Write the script to show all the users of the database connected every minute and run this script inside tha server.js file every minute using node-cron.

// index.js (with ES modules) import dotenv from 'dotenv'; import mongoose from 'mongoose'; import User from '../models/userModel.js'; // Import the User model dotenv.config(); async function connectAndShowUsers() { try { await mongoose.connect("mongodb://localhost:27017/mevn_url_shortener"); console.log('MongoDB Connected'); // Fetch all users const users = await User.find({}); console.log('Users:', users); // Optionally, process the users: if (users && users.length > 0) { users.forEach(user => { console.log(`Username: ${user.username}, Email: ${user.email}`); }); } else { console.log("No users found"); } // Close the connection (optional, but good practice): await mongoose.disconnect(); console.log('MongoDB Disconnected'); } catch (error) { console.error('Error:', error); } } connectAndShowUsers(); export default connectAndShowUsers; 

Inside the server.js import and use it like this

import cron from 'node-cron'; import connectAndShowUsers from './data/showUsers.js'; cron.schedule('* * * * *', () => { console.log('Running a task every minute'); // This would connect to MongoDb and show all users every minute // connectAndShowUsers(); }); 

That's it, it should now display all user data every minute on console. This runs independently of the main node server.

The application can be easily deployed using Docker containers. The application uses the following docker compose script to spawn 3 containers, one each for MongoDB, Express and Nginx

version: '3.8' services: express: build: context: . dockerfile: Dockerfile container_name: express_miniurl ports: - 5000:5000 depends_on: - mongo mongo: image: mongo container_name: mongo_miniurl restart: unless-stopped volumes: - ./mongo_data:/data/db ports: - '27017:27017' nginx: image: nginx container_name: nginx_miniurl restart: unless-stopped ports: - '80:80' volumes: - ./nginx/nginx.conf:/etc/nginx/nginx.conf depends_on: - express volumes: mongo_data: external: true 

Nginx is optional, we use it to proxy all requests coming to port 80 or 443 to port 5000. Using Nginx we can directly deploy the application on a server with Docker installed on it with one single magical command

docker-compose up 

We use volumes for data persistance if the mongoDB containers are destroyed for some reason.

That's it for now, if you liked this project consider giving it a star ⭐