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cPanel is looking to add Node.js support - thoughts?
Seems like cPanel is looking to add Node.js support:
https://features.cpanel.net/topic/nodejs-hosting
[email protected] said:
Good news everyone! One of our teams has expressed interest in adding node.js support, and has added this feature to their backlog. If all of the stars align we might see this land as soon as version 68. If the stars don't align we won't see this feature before early 2018, but I should be able to give you an updated timeline by the middle of September. I'll be back then to tell you how things are going!
What are your thoughts on this ? Especially on security of implementing Node.js on shared hosting environment?
Comments
I personally don't like node.js but I think it will be a step up in the calibre of apps that can be implemented both for the user as well as the admin. Especially when it comes to more realtime apps... though I can say users rarely ever take it into consideration from my experience. In terms of security, I have no idea.. I am guessing it will come with an added burden to see what users are running. At least its an additional option for web developers... so both a positive and potentially negative thing at the same time.
Plesk has it already, together with Ruby support and more, why are people still using cPanel?
Yeah cPanel actually dropped Ruby support after having it iirc, madness.
Wouldn't surprise me if it was dropped because it was a pain to support and demand was vanishing. Ruby on Rails peaked about 10 years ago.
Node.js + cPanel...sure, why not, but you're not going to be able to stuff a box the way you can with the last 20 years' php/mysql approach. I can see the cPanel desire though - use it to manage your DNS, mail, etc. and provision NodeJS instances.
Old habits never die I guess
The cloud panel you use is actually written in Ruby, just saying.
I know, I'm not saying it's a bad thing in any way. It was more to say that @AnthonySmith as an experienced SysOp probably learned it a long time ago :-).
I really need that all of my APIs are running on vps it will be better if they do.
It's very hard thing to accomplish, node works bit differently so every app use different ports etc.
They should add MongoDB with node I guess.
But there is not good web interface like phpmyadmin so they might don't add.
In my opinion.
Jeez, I had to read that twice...
Sorry my bad english.
I think the lack of punctuation is the culprit here -- the English itself is fine.
You got me. Thats what my teachers used to say.
As a Webdeveloper I am quite happy to hear this as I skipped learning PHP and went straight with node.js instead
Will make it even easier to manage my hosting environments.
We've had NodeJs support using cPanel for some time, not sure how many using it tho, not many tickets about it as far as I know, maybe they just know what they're doing
Seems like such an edge case, really doesn't justify the development IMO. It's one of those things where you go "oh that looks cool" and maybe even "I'd love to boast support of this for SEO" but then 1 out of 10,000 clients actually use it, and 1 out of 100,000 actually weren't just toying with it and try to use it in production.
Sir, it's the chance for the world to switch to Ghost instead of WordPress.
Sure adding the support will bring a lot more fun, like backing up hundreds of thousands of files due to node_modules folder :-)))
I think this will do good to be honest - but @jarland has a good point. It'll just sit there doing nothing. Also, remember when cPanel had Python? No one used it. And all the hosts disabled it.
Asides, here's my thoughts on it and Node in general:
it's nice to have a JS interpreter on your server
bloated as fuck (have you ever done a big node project then looked at the node_modules folder? it's hell)
will be used some, not too much
I hate node's community sometimes (they say "semicolons or die!" no, you won't die by not putting semicolons after every little statement.)
some other stuff that I'm not gonna say here, not gonna turn this into a rant :P
Node, I am having remarkable results as if we compare to Apache.
I am writing one module and I will release on npm. For webserver stress testing.
I have to disagree with @jarland
Node.js definitely is one of those things which sounds cool and most developers started throwing it into their CVs after a watching a youtube crashcourse video but node.js or broadly, javascript in both frontend and backend (node.js) is way past the 'cool new thing' phase. Given that how slow cPanel is with the features they add, and how Google and other providers are pushing javascript support and easy deployment, it makes perfect sense for them to work on a feature alot of developers would be asking for in the future
I use both php and Node.js, for PHP I consider cPanel but for node.js I haven't even had a thought of using cPanel. I do admit that the deployment is much more complex for node apps however so a clear opportunity for cPanel.
@tmwc you don't seem to have actually used node.js so I'm going to make some corrections in your comments.
For one, node_modules folder isn't actually deployed to your server in most cases. Secondly, just because your have alot of dependencies in your node_modules folder doesn't mean they will all get loaded. Only the 'files' you imported would be compiled with your code.
Wrong, with ES6 you do not need semicolons anymore, unlike PHP but I still use them to avoid getting used to a semicolon-free world and writing broken php code.
Stop using MongoDB, it was the 'cool new thing' which will die off due to its performance.
I've actually used node.js in a few projects. Discord bot, web apps, etc.
Yes, it isn't but usually you'll have a big bloat locally or at least somewhere. Yes, there is optional dependencies - but npm seems to install all deps, not just the ones needed. This would cause extra bloat.
Didn't know that actually. But most people think "gotta add that semicolon after those statements" in Node. Most of the time your linter will go crazy "OMG NO SEMICOLONS" if you do this unless you write up some JSON rules for it or whatever.
Although this wasn't directed to me, I'm just gonna say this. I never got the hang of MongoDB. I liked the idea of having a JSON DB - but it really could be better. I never got the syntax of the shell/statements. To this day I never use MongoDB - except on a Atlas (cloud DB - free) where it runs a place 2.0 clone and does nothing.
The world's had this chance for several years and the world is not interested.
You're defending Node.Js and saying that Mongo will die off now that it's no longer the cool new thing? :-) Irony.
Haha yeah, the slow select queries aren't just worth. Not super credible but: https://github.com/webcaetano/mongo-mysql
Another worthy read: http://cryto.net/~joepie91/blog/2015/07/19/why-you-should-never-ever-ever-use-mongodb/
Also, I think die off is a big word so I'd take that back.
Mongo is love. Mongo in front of MySQL is sex. Oh the speed.
I am using MYSQL though I had never had issues might be due to smaller sizes of db .
Mysql still at best performance I am having 25M data in one table but still very fast.
There is chicken and egg here.
If cPanel is able to add Node support, then usage of Node will explore. It will tremendously help its popularity.
But the point of cPanel is to oversell resources, may not be viable to support Node.
Would be a pain in the arse but I'd like to see python support.
Managed devops for node.... Isn't this how heroku made their fortune with rOr fan crowd?
The market is definitely there
Mixed thoughts. Being realistic, cPanel is primarily used in shared hosting environments, and the trick of sharing a runtime between users (like you can do with PHP) basically doesn't work for anything that isn't PHP, so something like Node.js is probably going to be a 'resource hog' from the point of view of hosting providers. It may very well not be enabled for that reason.
Aside from that, the question is how long Node.js versions will be supported for. cPanel does not exactly have the best reputation in terms of keeping things up-to-date, so I expect there to be issues with them shipping / only supporting EOL versions of Node.js and such.
I don't think it's a bad idea to support it, but I doubt that many providers will enable support for it, and I also question whether cPanel can support it well enough not to introduce stupid constraints that Actual Developers don't want to have to deal with.
Aside from that:
That doesn't make it "bloated", quite the opposite. See also here. The dependencies are simply smaller, and therefore you logically end up with more files to implement the same functionality, even if the overall amount of code, API surface and complexity you're dealing with is considerably reduced.
(Unless you mean filesystem bloat, in which case yes, that is a possible concern due to amount of inodes - but solving that doesn't require abandoning the small-module approach. I've also not really seen any real-world issues deriving from the amount of files.)
Semicolons are required in JS after every statement. The automatic insertion of missing semicolons is an error-correction mechanism that shouldn't be relied on; there is a number of ambiguous cases where omitting them can lead to the code doing something different from what you intended. This has not changed in ES6 either, and semicolons are still required.
Honestly, adding ASI to JS was a mistake. All it does is create confusion about whether you need to use semicolons or not, and barely anybody actually understands when it does and doesn't work.
Comparing to Apache is not really a good benchmark, though - Apache is notoriously unperformant, even after tweaking your configuration. If you purely compare HTTP request handling between Node.js and for example nginx, then Node.js will lose performance-wise - not to a degree that matters in the real world for most cases, but it will be slower nevertheless.
You're going to run into a hard performance limit there. Your stresstester isn't going to keep up with eg. nginx, and will give you wrong results.
Well, that depends. You are going to need to have a
node_moduleson your server with your runtime dependencies. You could rsync over your local copy, or you couldnpm installon the server, or you could have a build server, or whatever else - but one way or another, you will have anode_modulesin your production deployment. It just doesn't need to contain the development dependencies.NPM's definition of "optional dependencies" is "dependencies where it's okay if the installation fails". It's most commonly used for OS-specific dependencies (such as
fseventsfor OS X, used in eg.chokidar), so that on the relevant OSes the dependency is installed and optionally compiled, but on other OSes it just gets ignored.The idea of a "JSON DB" sounds nice on paper, but in practice it's just not really practical most of the time. Document stores (which is what such a DB would need to be) are totally unsuitable for most projects, since most projects work with relational data and therefore require a relational database.
For similar reasons, the whole "NoSQL" hype is complete nonsense; there is no such category. Database choice is much more complicated, and you need to look at the technical properties of a database, not some arbitrary classification that the marketing team slapped onto it. In the end, your database choice should follow your data model and consistency requirements.
I wrote a simplified selection of database characteristics here, and there's a more in-depth presentation about database designs that I strongly recommend, that can be watched here.