node-monkey

NodeMonkey

A Node.js module for inspecting and debugging Node.js applications through a web browser

NodeMonkey runs a simple server and uses Socket.IO to create a websocket connection between the browser and server. It captures anything that would normally be logged to the terminal, converts it to JSON and passes it to the browser where it can be logged in the console for inspection.

Version 0.2.0 also introduces code profiling functionality and the ability to send commands to your Node.js application from your web browser.
Version 0.2.1 introduces major changes and cleanup. You can now register your own commands that can be run from the browser's Javascript console.

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The motivation for this project came from trying to debug a Node.js server I wrote that used websockets. I found it problematic trying to inspect objects with the terminal. I tried using the built-in debugging that works with the Chrome Developer Tools plugin for Eclipse. Unfortunately, I ran into a problem where setting breakpoints to inspect objects would cause the server to stop responding to heartbeats thus causing the client to disconnect. This would entirely mess up my debugging efforts. All I really needed to do was have a good way to inspect objects. I searched Google and found projects like node-inspector, which doesn't work with the latest versions of Node, and node-codein which has many bugs. And neither works with Firefox.

So NodeMonkey was born!

Compatibility

Any browser with a Javasript console and websocket soupport!

Installation

npm install node-monkey

A note on security

NodeMonkey is primarily designed for debugging and for now should only be used for such. I haven't implemented any sort of authorization to prevent anyone from gaining access to the data that is dumped out. If you are concerned about other's potentially gaining access while you are debugging, you should change the host from 0.0.0.0 to something more secure like 127.0.0.1. Definitely don't include it in production code before authorization is in place, and even then it's debatable whether there's a good reason.

Complete Documentation

To get a quick start see the limited examples below. For complete documentation see the following links:

• NodeMonkey API
• Profiler API

Quick Usage

Using NodeMonkey is extremely easy. All you have to do is include the following line in your Node.js application. Anything that is logged to the console after this will show up in the browser console once connected. It captures all output to console.log(), console.warn() and console.error().

var nomo = require('node-monkey').start([options]);

To connect your browser simply go to http://0.0.0.0:50500 in your web browser. If you change the default host and port bindings be sure to adjust your URL accordingly.

As an alternative to viewing output through this page, you can also view output in the console of your own web application by including the following lines (adjust the host and port as necessary, this is based on the defaults):

<script type="text/javascript" src="http://0.0.0.0:50500/socket.io/socket.io.js"></script>
<script type="text/javascript" src="http://0.0.0.0:50500/lodash.js"></script>
<script type="text/javascript" src="http://0.0.0.0:50500/cycle.js"></script>
<script type="text/javascript" src="http://0.0.0.0:50500/client.js"></script>

NOTE: You do NOT have to refresh the page when you restart your Node.js application to continue to receive output. Socket.IO will automatically reconnect.

Options

• host: The host network interface to bind to. Default is 0.0.0.0 which means ALL interfaces.
• port: The port to listen on. Default is 50500.
• suppressOutput: Use this to suppress terminal output when console.log() is called, freeing the console from clutter and allowing you to only inspect objects through the browser. Default is true.
• saveOutput: If data is logged before you are able to connect your browser, you may still want to be able to view this data. Setting this option to true causes node-monkey to save the output and dump it out to the browser once you connect. Default is true.
• silent: If true then nothing will be logged to the console when started. Default is false.

Logging Examples

Example 1

require('node-monkey').start();
console.log('It works!', {key1: 'test', key2: ['an', 'array']});

Example 2

require('node-monkey').start({
  suppressOutput: false
});

console.log('It works!');
console.warn('You might have done something wrong');
console.error('FATAL ERROR', {message: 'Something broke'});

Contribute

I welcome any pull requests, feature suggestions, bug fixes and bug reports. Let me know what you think.

Dependencies

• Socket.IO
• Lo-Dash

LICENSE - "MIT License"

Copyright (c) 2012 Justin Warkentin

Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:

The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.

Changelog

Version 0.2.7

• New overrideConsole option to disable overriding the console functions when starting NodeMonkey
• Allow configuring the host the NodeMonkey client should connect to and not just the port. This is useful when the server is running on a different subdomain or other hostname than the one in the URL.
• Get rid of buffering message spam in the console where NodeMonkey is running
• Use Lo-Dash instead of Underscore
• Support console.dir()