impress

Impress application server for node.js. All decisions are made and optimized for security, performance, high-intensive network operations, scalability, interactivity, rapid development practices, and clean project structure.

Quick start

• Install with npm install impress or copy project template from metarhia/Example
• Start server with node server.js or select execution mode (test, dev, prod) use MODE=dev node server.js
• See documentation and specifications and project home page: https://metarhia.com

Metarhia and Impress application server way

• Applied code needs to be simple and secure, so we use code sandboxing with v8 isolated contexts, worker threads and minimal trusted npm dependencies;
• Domain code needs to be separated from system code; so we use DDE, layered (onion) architecture, DI, SOLID:DIP principle and contract-based approach;
• Impress supports both stateful applications with RPC and client-session sticky to servers; microservices, centralized and distributed architecture;
• No I/O is faster even than async I/O, so we hold state in memory and use lazy I/O for persistent storage;

Features

• Auto API routing, just create endpoint files as an async js lambda function;
• API code live reload with file system watch (when files change on disk);
• Graceful shutdown and application state recovery after reload;
• Minimum code size and dependencies;
• Can scale on multiple threads and servers;
• Code sandboxing for security, dependency injection, and context isolation;
• Utilize multiple CPU cores and serve multiple ports with worker threads;
• Inter-process communication and shared memory used for state management;
• State synchronization mechanism with transactions and subscription;
• Cache server-side executable JavaScript in memory;
• API development support: AJAX RPC and Websocket support;
• Serve static files from memory cache;
• Application configuration (for different named environments);
• Database access layer for PostgreSQL and Relational db schemas;
• Persistent sessions support with authentication, groups, and anonymous;
• Multiple protocols: HTTP, HTTPS, WS, WSS;
• Logging with buffering (lazy write) and rotation (keep logs N days);
• File utilities: upload, download, streaming;
• Built-in simple testing framework;
• Server health monitoring;
• Built-in data structures validation and preprocessing library;
• Task scheduling (interval or certain time);
• Request queue with timeout and size;
• Execution timeout and error handling;

Requirements

• Node.js v12.9.0 or later (v14 preferred)
• Linux (tested on Fedora 30, Ubuntu 16, 18, 19 and 20, CentOS 7 and 8)
• Postgresql 9.5 or later (v11.8 preferred)
• OpenSSL v1.1.1 or later (optional, for https & wss)
• certbot (recommended but optional)

License & Contributors

Copyright (c) 2012-2021 Metarhia contributors. See github for full contributors list. Impress Application Server is MIT licensed. Project coordinator: <[e-mail]>

Changelog

[2.0.7][] - 2021-02-13

• Update metarhia/config to 2.1.0
• Add access to the environment variables from configs via process.env
• Handle startup exceptions: can't read config