@varasto/server

HTTP interface implementation to Varasto key-value store. Can be run standalone or embedded to other Express.js applications.

Installation

If you want to run the server as standalone:

$ npm install @varasto/server

Or if you want to use the server in your own Express.js application:

$ npm install --save @varasto/server

Usage

As mentioned previously, the package can be used as part of an Express.js application or as an standalone application.

Standalone

$ varasto [-p port] [-a username:password] <directory>

Port which the HTTP server will be responding from can be specified with the -p flag. By default Varasto will use port 3000.

Optional basic access authentication can be enabled with -a flag.

The directory where items are stored is specified with <directory> command line argument. If the directory does not exist, it will be created once items are being stored.

Once the HTTP server is up and running, you can use HTTP methods GET, POST and DELETE to retrieve, store and remove items from the store.

HTTPS suppport

HTTPS support can be enabled with --certificate and --private-key command line arguments.

$ varasto --certificate /path/to/cert.crt --private-key /path/to/key.key

Security notes

The server does not currently support any other type of authentication than basic access authentication (which is not enabled by default), so you might not want to expose it to public network.

Embedded

The package provides an function called createServer, which returns an Express.js application.

Basic usage looks like this:

import { createServer } from '@varasto/server';
import { createFileSystemStorage } from '@varasto/fs-storage';
import express from 'express';

const app = express();
const storage = createFileSystemStorage({ dir: './data' });

app.use('/', createServer(storage));

Authentication

To enable basic access authentication for the API, an optional configuration can be given to the createServer function.

app.use('/', createServer(storage, {
  auth: {
    username: 'AzureDiamond',
    password: 'hunter2'
  }
}));

Storing items

To store an item, you can use a POST request like this:

POST /foo/bar HTTP/1.0
Content-Type: application/json
Content-Length: 14

{"foo": "bar"}

Or you can use curl to store an item like this:

$ curl -X POST \
    -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
    -d '{"foo": "bar"}' \
    http://localhost:3000/foo/bar

Namespace of the item in the example above would be foo and the key would be bar. These identifiers can now be used to retrieve, update or remove the stored item.

Retrieving items

To retrieve a previously stored item, you make an GET request, where the request path again acts as the identifier of the item.

GET /foo/bar HTTP/1.0

To which the HTTP server will respond with the JSON object previously stored with namespace foo and key bar. If an item with given key under the given namespace does not exist, HTTP error 404 will be returned instead.

Listing items

To list all items stored under an namespace, you make an GET request with name of the namespace as the request path.

GET /foo HTTP/1.0

To which the HTTP server will respond with an JSON object which contains each item stored under namespace foo mapped with the key that they were stored with.

Removing items

To remove an previously stored item, you make a DELETE request, with the request path again acting as the identifier of the item you wish to remove.

DELETE /foo/bar HTTP/1.0

If item with key bar under namespace foo exists, it's value will be returned as response. If such item does not exist, HTTP error 404 will be returned instead.

Updating items

You can also partially update an already existing item with PATCH request. The JSON sent with an PATCH request will be shallowly merged with the already existing data and the result will be sent as response.

For example, you have an item john-doe under namespace people with the following data:

{
    "name": "John Doe",
    "address": "Some street 4",
    "phoneNumber": "+35840123123"
}

And you send an PATCH request like this:

PATCH /people/john-doe HTTP/1.0
Content-Type: application/json
Content-Length: 71

{
    "address": "Some other street 5",
    "faxNumber": "+358000000"
}

You end up with:

{
    "name": "John Doe",
    "address": "Some other street 5",
    "phoneNumber": "+35840123123",
    "faxNumber": "+358000000"
}