Physical Files Inaccessible in Browser with Node.js App Running on IIS

Question

I am building an API for creating screenshots and parsing web pages into RSS feeds using a Node.js web application with Puppeteer and RSS Parser. It does a great job taking screenshots and creating XML files containing the main content from scraped pages in RSS format. Unfortunately, I cannot access any physical files in the browser when running the app.

Let me give you an example. I have a test deployment running on a Windows Server using IIS 10 at http://85.17.219.113/ and an example screenshot SHOULD be found at http://85.17.219.113/images/2021/3/29c55371-d244-7d2d-f9d0c6a4ebf6.jpg but if you load that URL in your browser it will not load the image. Instead it loads server.js from the root of the Node app. This appears to be a problem with my application since it occurs on my development machine when the application is launched using IIS Express by Visual Studio 2019.

How do I make the app load physical files in the browser?

Side note: I have not decided whether or not to use IIS for the final deployment. I currently have an Apache Server, a Windows Server hosting various websites, and the server I am using here to test the node app on IIS before my rental of it ends on the 24th. I would like to be able to figure out what type of system resources the app uses when running at full speed before deciding to host the app on my IIS server long term, finding a host that specializes in Node since my Apache server does not have the system resources to run a screenshot API on top of the sites it currently hosts, or upgrading the Apache Server so it can host the app.

score 0 · Answer 1 · answered Mar 19 '21 at 06:44

Looks like I had to instruct my app to create different types of files based on extensions. Since I save all screenshots as .jpg and all RSS feeds as .xml that was easy. My server.js file now looks like this:

'use strict';
var http = require('http');
var port = process.env.PORT || 1337;
var url = require('url');  
var runPup = require('./app.js');
http.createServer(function (req, res) {
    var page = req.url;
    if (page.endsWith('.jpg')) {
        //var img = fs.readFileSync('.' + page);
        //res.writeHead(200, { 'Content-Type': 'image/jpg' });
        //res.end(img, 'binary');
        try {
            const fs = require('fs');
            var img = fs.readFileSync('.' + page);
            res.writeHead(200, { 'Content-Type': 'image/jpg' });
            res.end(img, 'binary');
        } catch (err) {
            // Here you get the error when the file was not found,
            // but you also get any other error
            console.log(err);
        }
    } else {
        if (page.endsWith('.xml')) {
            try {
                const fs = require('fs');
                var xml = fs.readFileSync('.' + page);
                res.writeHead(200, { 'Content-Type': 'text/xml' });
                res.end(xml, 'binary');
            } catch (err) {
                // Here you get the error when the file was not found,
                // but you also get any other error
                console.log(err);
            }
        } else {
            runPup.runPuppeteer(page);
            res.writeHead(200, { 'Content-Type': 'text/plain' });
            res.end('RSS Screenshot Scraper - Alpha\nProcessing File\n' + page);
        }
        
    }
}).listen(port);

Physical Files Inaccessible in Browser with Node.js App Running on IIS

1 Answers1