Pintro App

Pintro is a mobile social networking app built for ios and android devices. The app consists of four parts, the react native client, the NodeJS server, the Admin panel and the Mongo database + Mongo Express.

Client App

• The beta version of the app is run using the expo framework

• The expo server should be installed on a computer on the same network as the target mobile device for best results.

• Install the expo cli with -g flag npm install -g expo-cli

• cd into /client

• run npm install

• If you want to run the app using a local backend, follow the next step, if not then skip and set production to true in /client/src/env.js

• Get your local device IP (This step is optional if you want to run using a local backend)

  • On Mac - Go to Networking on System preferences and grab the IP on the right hand side
  • In terminal, run REACT_NATIVE_PACKAGER_HOSTNAME=[ip] replacing [ip] with the one you just copied

• run expo start

• Install the Expo client on android or ios

• Scan the QR code found on localhost:19002. Expo should build the react bundle and download it to your mobile device

• Alternatively, it is possible to use either the Android or iOS simulator.

  • Follow relevant guide to get started
    • iOS - https://docs.expo.io/workflow/ios-simulator/
    • Android - https://docs.expo.io/workflow/android-studio-emulator/

• Possible errors

  • App silently times out and never starts the application
    • This could be caused by a firewall rule blocking the expo client port (19001).
      • Solutions:
        • Allow this port on the firewall
        • Start expo in tunnel mode expo start --tunnel or start it normally and choose tunnel from the left menu

Add platform-tools to your path (pre-req to run using local backend with android device/emulator)

• In terminal, run the following: echo 'export ANDROID_HOME=/Users/$USER/Library/Android/sdk' >> ~/.bash_profile echo 'export PATH=${PATH}:$ANDROID_HOME/tools:$ANDROID_HOME/platform-tools' >> ~/.bash_profile
• Refresh your bash profile (or restart your terminal app) source ~/.bash_profile
• Run adb start-server
• Start your android emulator
• In terminal run adb reverse tcp:3000 tcp:3000

Backend Deployment

A live version of the DB and NodeJS server has been deployed on google cloud. The IP can be found in /client/src/env.js

NodeJS Server & Mongo DB & Mongo Express

The backend components have been dockerized for simple deployment. This tutorial will go through deployment on an AWS Linux ec2 instance.

• Launch a new Amazon Linux 2 AMI instance on AWS and connect to it through ssh
• Create security groups which allow incoming and outgoing connections from anywhere for the following ports [3000, 8081, 5000]
• Install and start docker
  • sudo yum update -y
  • sudo amazon-linux-extras install docker
  • sudo service docker start
• Clone the Repo onto the instance
  • Install git
    • sudo yum install git -y
• Add enviroment variables
  • Create a file name ".env" in /server with the following content

MONGO_USERNAME=root
MONGO_PASSWORD=example
MONGO_HOST=127.0.0.1
MONGO_PORT=27017
MONGO_DB=pintro

LINKED_IN_CLIENT_ID=[Add creds]
LINKED_IN_CLIENT_SECRET=[Add creds]

FACEBOOK_CLIENT_ID=[Add creds]
FACEBOOK_CLIENT_SECRET=[Add creds]

GOOGLE_CLIENT_ID=[Add creds]
GOOGLE_CLIENT_SECRET=[Add creds]

FIREBASE_APIKEY=[Add creds]
FIREBASE_AUTHDOMAIN=[Add creds]
FIREBASE_DBURL=[Add creds]
FIREBASE_PROJECTID=[Add creds]
FIREBASE_STORAGEBUCKET=[Add creds]
FIREBASE_MESSAGINGSENDERID=[Add creds]
FIREBASE_APPID=[Add creds]
FIREBASE_MEASUREMENTID=[Add creds]

• Start the docker container

  • While in the root directory run docker-compose up
  • This will start three different container
    • Server Container
      • Node container
    • Database Container
      • Mongo DB
    • MongoExpress container
      • See the contents of MongoDB

• Possible errors

  • Error related to gRPC
    • This error is because of firebase. To fix the error, run docker-compose up, then in a new terminal tab, enter docker exec -it server bash (so you can bash into the container). Then run npm rebuild. Exit the bash and restart the container
  • Missing Modules
    • If you get missing package errors or some other package error, bash into the container (docker exec -it server bash), delete node_modules dir, delete package-lock.json in and try to install them again using npm install. To install specific packages user npm install [package name]
  • For any other errors check the GitHub wiki
  • Sign in with linked in will only work if your expo client has been added to the trusted callback URLs in linked in
  • App notifications will only work on physical devices + you must be logged in to expo

Admin Panel

• On the aws instance cd admin-panel
• npm install
• $export PORT=5000 to use port 5000 for the admin panel
• npm start