Parse Server - Fresh Start

With Parse’s epic announcement that they are shutting down their server in a year and that they open sourced the server portion that works with the exisiting iOS SDK’s - I need to figure out how to move an app I’m developing from Parse to Parse Server on Heroku. Here’s the steps I did to get a basic app up and running.

Setup

Install/Update/Upgrade Homebrew brew update brew upgrade
Install Node (if you don’t have it) brew install node
Install MongoDB brew install mongodb

Node Server

Make a new folder for your server cd MyAwesomeServer
Make a new git repo git init
Create your main file touch app.js
Go through npm’s setup npm init
Install Parse Server npm install parse-server --save
Open app.js and add this:

var express = require('express');
var ParseServer = require('parse-server').ParseServer;

var app = express();

var api = new ParseServer({
	databaseURI: 'mongodb://localhost:27017/dev',
  	appId: 'myAppId',
  	masterKey: 'mySecretMasterKey',
  	clientKey: 'someKeyForClients',
});

// Any calls to server address/parse will use Parse Server
app.use('/parse', api)

// Basic response
app.get('/', function(request, response) {
	response.status(200).send('Express Server is running');
});

var port = process.env.PORT || 9001;
app.listen(port, function() {
	console.log('myawesomeserver running on port: ' + port);
});

Run your new server node app.js
Check your server is running by going to localhost:9001
Modify package.json and add "start": "node app.js", to the scripts dictionary

MongoDB

Create an account on MongoLab
Create a new instance: Single-node Sandbox (free)
Click on the server and create a database user
Modify the databaseURI in app.js with the connection URI listed on the site

iOS App

Add/Update Parse Pod currently: pod 'Parse', '~> 1.12.0'
In your AppDelegate initial Parse with your server settings:

Parse.initializeWithConfiguration(ParseClientConfiguration(block: { (configuration: ParseMutableClientConfiguration) -> Void in
            configuration.applicationId = "myAppId"
            configuration.clientKey = "someKeyForClients"
            configuration.server = "http://localhost:9001/parse"
}))

To test in some viewcontroller’s viewDidAppear add:

let myCar = PFObject(className: "Car")
myCar["color"] = "green"
myCar.saveInBackground()

You might get some errors about App Transport Security - its easy to fix Stackoverflow
Verify on MongoLab that the data was saved correctly

Heroku

Make a Heroku Account
Get Familiar with Heroku: Getting Started or :
Install Heroku Toolbelt brew install heroku-toolbelt
Login heroku login
Commit everything to git if you haven’t yet git add . git commit -m "Some Message"
Create your heroku app heroku create myawesomeapp
Push your app to heroku git push heroku master
Verify its running at the deploy URL returned by Heroku
Update server URL in your iOS App - you can remove the App Transport Security stuff since Heroku runs apps on HTTPS
Verify on MongoLabs that your test was created

Woo!

Have a drink and relax now that you aren’t reliant on Parse.com

Parse Server - Fresh Start

References