Introduction
I already have a working website using Nuxt and SSR so why would I move everything to Firebase?
SSR stands for server-side rendering, you can find more information here Understanding Server Side Rendering
There are so many reasons!
To list a few...
Price
Current solution: I have to pay every month for a private server
Firebase: Well, for my needs, it's free.
Configuration
Current solution: I have to configure everything myself. Docker containers, https, Nginx reverse proxy, ...
Firebase: Everything you need is already done. Logging, analytics, https, custom domain, ...
Update
Current solution: A change in my website? here are the steps
- Push changes to git
- Hook on docker hub get triggered and build the container (10-15 min)
- Connect on the server (1 min)
- Pull the latest container version (1 min)
- Find the right folder where the docker-compose.yaml is and update it (2 min)
I know I could've automated things a bit more but still...
Firebase: Steps
- type firebase deploy in terminal (1-2 min)
- done... changes are live
You're hooked? Obviously, you are. Let me help you get it running.
Setup the Firebase project
Create your Firebase account
You want to use Firebase, don't you? Well, you need to create your account first.
Done? We can now create a new project.
Create a Firebase project
Let's head over to Firebase console and click on Add project.
Set your project name.
Click on Continue.
Uncheck Google analytics for now and click on Add Firebase.
Wait for the project initialization and click on continue.
Install Firebase CLI
Now with the help of NPM, we will install the firebase tools on our computer.
Simply enter this command on your favorite terminal
npm i -g firebase-tools
Afterward, you should be able to login with this command
firebase login
A browser window will pop up and allow you to login with your Google account.
Alright, the initial Firebase setup is done...
Before adding firebase to our project, we need to update our application project structure...
Project Structure
I'm supposing you already have a nuxt project.
If not, head over to the Nuxt website to create a new app with express for the server side.
Our project will be decomposed into 3 directories
- src: This is where our development files sit
- functions: This is where our SSR function will be
- public: This directory will hold the files that will be served by Firebase hosting
We won't take care of the functions and public directories. It will be generated automatically.
So create the src directory and move all the nuxt directories into it.
Only the directories, leave the configuration files at the root
You should have something like the structure below
The app is broken now! Let's fix it by updating the nuxt config...
Update Nuxt config
In nuxt.config.js, add the following lines in module.exports
module.exports = {
[...]
srcDir: 'src',
buildDir: 'functions/.nuxt',
[...]
}
And in the build object, set extractCss to true
module.exports = {
[...]
build: {
extractCSS: true,
[...]
}
[...]
}
It is still broken because npm script cannot find our entry file server/index.js
Let's update our package.json
Replace dev and start scripts with these.
I just prefixed the path with "src"
"dev": "cross-env NODE_ENV=development nodemon src/server/index.js --watch server",
"start": "cross-env NODE_ENV=production node src/server/index.js",
You should now be able to start your application by typing yarn dev or npm run dev
Notice that the functions directory has been created with the nuxt files in it.
Add Firebase to the project
Like Git or NPM, Firebase CLI has its init command to get everything you need quickly.
Launch the command
firebase init
The CLI will ask you some questions and here are the answers:
? Are you ready to proceed?
> Yes
? Which Firebase CLI features do you want to set up for this folder? Press Space to select features, then Enter to confirm your choices.
> Functions: Configure and deploy Cloud Functions,
> Hosting: Configure and deploy Firebase Hosting sites
? Please select an option:
> Use an existing project
(Select the project we created earlier)
? What language would you like to use to write Cloud Functions? (Use arrow keys)
> JavaScript
? Do you want to use ESLint to catch probable bugs and enforce style? (y/N)
> y
? Do you want to install dependencies with npm now? (Y/n)
> Y
? What do you want to use as your public directory? (public)
> public
? Configure as a single-page app (rewrite all urls to /index.html)? (y/N)
> N
A wild public directory appeared! Our project structure is now complete.
We can now edit our function...
Implement SSR function
Open the functions/index.js file, remove everything and paste the code below
const functions = require('firebase-functions')
const { Nuxt } = require('nuxt')
const express = require('express')
const app = express()
const config = {
dev: false
}
const nuxt = new Nuxt(config)
let isReady = false
const readyPromise = nuxt
.ready()
.then(() => {
isReady = true
})
.catch(() => {
process.exit(1)
})
async function handleRequest(req, res) {
if (!isReady) {
await readyPromise
}
res.set('Cache-Control', 'public, max-age=1, s-maxage=1')
await nuxt.render(req, res)
}
app.get('*', handleRequest)
app.use(handleRequest)
exports.nuxtssr = functions.https.onRequest(app)
To sum it up, on each reqest, the function will pass the response and request object to the nuxt.render(req, res) function which will handle the app rendering.
Updating the function package.json
The function will need the same libraries as your nuxt app. Copy the package.json dependencies to the functions/package.json dependencies
At the time of writing this article, firebase supports node version 10. In functions/package.json you can update the node engine version from 8 to 10.
Here's an example of the functions/package.json of a blank nuxt project
{
"name": "functions",
"description": "Cloud Functions for Firebase",
"scripts": {
"lint": "eslint .",
"serve": "firebase serve --only functions",
"shell": "firebase functions:shell",
"start": "npm run shell",
"deploy": "firebase deploy --only functions",
"logs": "firebase functions:log"
},
"engines": {
"node": "10"
},
"dependencies": {
"firebase-admin": "^8.0.0",
"firebase-functions": "^3.1.0",
"cross-env": "^5.2.0",
"nuxt": "^2.3.4",
"express": "^4.16.4",
"vuetify": "^1.3.14",
"vuetify-loader": "^1.0.8",
"@nuxtjs/pwa": "^2.6.0"
},
"devDependencies": {
"eslint": "^5.12.0",
"eslint-plugin-promise": "^4.0.1",
"firebase-functions-test": "^0.1.6"
},
"private": true
}
Updating firebase.json
Replace the whole file with
{
"hosting": {
"public": "public",
"ignore": ["firebase.json", "**/.*", "**/node_modules/**"],
"rewrites": [
{
"source": "**",
"function": "nuxtssr"
}
]
}
}
It will redirect all the requests to the function we've made
Using a node version above 10 can cause some issues...
You can use nvm or directly install NodeJs 10 on your computer.
Automate all the things
Static files
We learned earlier that static files will be held by the public directory. But what are the nuxt static files?
There will be the nuxt app itself, the result of the nuxt build command.
And the static files (.jpg, .ico, .png, ...) stored into the src/static directory
So we'll need to move them both in the public directory, let's see how...
Step by step
Here is what we're going to automate with the scripts
- Clean the directories in case there's already something in it
- Build the nuxt app
- The built app is now in the functions directory. Copy the content of the functions/.nuxt/dist/ directory to the public/_nuxt directory
- Copy the static files from the src/static/ directory to the root of the public directory
- Install the functions dependencies with yarn
The public folder should look something like this
These scripts will do all that for us. So kind of them.
Add these to the main package.json file.
Windows version
scripts: {
"build": "nuxt build",
"build:firebase": "yarn clean && yarn build && yarn copy && cd \"functions\" && yarn",
"clean": "yarn clean:public && yarn clean:functions && yarn clean:static",
"clean:functions": "rimraf \"functions/node_modules\" && rimraf \"functions/.nuxt\"",
"clean:public": "rimraf \"public/**/*.*!(md)\" && rimraf \"public/_nuxt\"",
"clean:static": "rimraf \"src/static/sw.js\"",
"copy": "yarn copy:nuxt && yarn copy:static",
"copy:nuxt": "xcopy \"functions\\.nuxt\\dist\\*\" \"public\\_nuxt\\\" /E /Y",
"copy:static": "xcopy \"src\\static\\*\" \"public\\\" /E /Y",
"start:firebase": "firebase serve --only functions,hosting",
"deploy": "firebase deploy --only functions,hosting"
}
MacOs version
Thanks to Michael Messerli for his MacOs scripts version
"scripts": {
// ...
"build:firebase": "yarn clean && yarn build && yarn copy && cd functions && yarn",
"clean": "yarn clean:public && yarn clean:functions && yarn clean:static",
"clean:functions": "rimraf \"functions/node_modules\" && rimraf \"functions/.nuxt\"",
"clean:public": "rimraf \"public/**/*.*!(md)\" && rimraf \"public/_nuxt\"",
"clean:static": "rimraf \"src/static/sw.js\"",
"copy": "yarn copy:nuxt && yarn copy:static",
"copy:nuxt": "mkdir public/_nuxt && cp -r functions/.nuxt/dist/* public/_nuxt",
"copy:static": "cp -r src/static/* public",
"start:firebase": "firebase serve --only functions,hosting",
"deploy": "firebase deploy --only functions,hosting",
// ...
}
Still having issues? James Block comment might help you https://dev.to/meanjames/comment/leln
Grand finale
You can now launch these commands to start your application:
yarn build:firebase
yarn start:firebase
And to deploy:
yarn build:firebase
yarn deploy
Tho, for development, you can still use
yarn dev
Conclusion
You now got a server-rendered nuxt application on firebase... Easy huh?
For this article, I did an example with a blank nuxt app. Here's the final project nuxt-on-firebase example repository.
Did you spot an error? Shame on me! You can correct it by doing a pull request right here nuxt-on-firebase repository
Top comments (54)
Hi there :)
Thank you for your tutorial.
I run into an error when i try to start d´the dev server. It looks like he cant find the server cant find the node modules. Does anybody has a similar problem?
Greetings Micha
My errorcode:
[nodemon] 1.19.4
[nodemon] to restart at any time, enter
rs
[nodemon] watching dir(s): server
[nodemon] watching extensions: js,mjs,json
[nodemon] starting
node src/server/index.js
internal/modules/cjs/loader.js:796
throw err;
^
Error: Cannot find module '../nuxt.config.js'
Require stack:
my recent nuxt build doesn't have server folder for some reason
i have some problem, i could not find server folder, i have develop in normal nuxt before
Its probably caused by in the initial creation of your NUXT app, you did not choose an integrated server-side framework... the options were express, koa, hapi.. etc In this case you were supposed to choose Express... that's when the server folder will appear...
check this out, it gives you a step by step guide... read though it especially steps 1
Thank you very much , I appreciate your reply.
My nuxt installation script didn't offer the option to choose an integrated server-side framework. What did I do wrong?
same problem... managed to fix it?
It's giving an error because the directiores was changed and nuxt.config.js can't be found. Just go to src/server/index.js and change "const config = require('../nuxt.config.js')" to "const config = require('../../nuxt.config.js')".
Thanks, was stuck for like 2 weeks on this part...
Great article, it really helped out a lot! But, I still had some issues
The Story
The one issue I had was with writing the scripts. Im using a mac and didn't have access to the rimraf command. I was able to write scripts just using the the rm -rf command as a substitute. However I ran into an issue when trying to run the fallowing command...
Sidenote
The command should work fine if you are using git bash and run it in your terminal after enabeling extended globing and remove the escaped double quotations. The commands to do that are as fallows...
Enable
Disabled
This lead me on a journey to discover a little bit of information that to most is probably well known and obvious, and that is that the npm run scripts don't use the users shell. In other words if I wanted to use the extended globing feature in my scripts I would need to install additional node packages like the rimraf node package. Furthermore, using the rimraf package is apparently faster then rm -rf and is more cross platform compatible.
Take Away
I learned a few important things from trying to fallow this article. For clarity I think the article would benefit from having them included even if they seem obvious.
rm -rf
and allows for a work around to therm -rf
with pattern matching in node scripts issue.Granted most of these issues are from the view point of someone using a macOS or git bash. However, I'm assuming writing scripts on a windows computer has similar issues if you try to avoid using the packages like rimraf. I just think it would be a good thing to mention what the package is and how to use them because chances are someone like myself wont know about the package.
Scripts if using npm on macOS.
This should be fairly obvious but all you need to do is replace yarn with npm run...
Hey James,
Thanks for the deep explanation!
I'll put a link to your comment in the article for every other macOs users out there.
Thanks again for them.
Glad I could help!
To make it more obvious: Replace yarn with npm run, but at the end of build:firebase change run to i (install)
Thank you so much for this guide!
Here's what I changed in the package.json for anyone on macOs:
I'm glad you liked it.
Thanks for the macOs scripts, I'll update the article.
For anyone else struggling with the no
server/index.js
being generated on project creation, here's what I did (quite simply):server/index.js
file, then copied the author'sindex.js
from the project repo - he provides a link at the bottom of the article. Remember to replace thedev
andbuild
scripts inpackage.json
!import colors from 'vuetify/es5/util/colors'
statement at the top ofnuxt.config.js
so I removed that import entirely and because of that I also had to remove the references tocolors
from thevuetify
section (which I'm in any case gonna replace with my own hex strings later on)export default {
tomodule.exports = {
at the top ofnuxt.config.js
After doing all of that, the project seems to be starting up just fine (though I still have to finish the rest of the article to see if it's gonna keep working). All this being said, I feel that my solution was probably not optimal (for one thing, I can't use
import
statements in mynuxt.config.js
file anymore), so if anyone finds a better solution, please point me to it.And FWIW, I'm running nuxt 2.14.12
Updates:
I managed to finish the tutorial but I now get stuck on the
yarn build:firebase
,yarn start:firebase
part. It builds fine, but when running the start command, I get the following output:[ I had to change my functions' node version to 12, coz that's what's running on my machine].
And when I then visit localhost:5000 in my browser, all it gives me is
Cannot GET /
in the browser window, with a 404 in the dev console.I'm too tired to try and debug it now, but I'll get to it in the morning. If anyone else manages to get it sorted before me, please comment with your solution. Otherwise I'll make another update if/when I figure it out.
So I've been at it all day and made some progress.
Cannot set property config of #<Object> which has only a getter
warning turned out to be nothing - I fixed it by updating myfirebase-tools
package, but it didn't solve theCannot GET /
problem.npm i
).Not sure how many of these changes actually made a difference, but that's just what I did.
I'm now perfectly able to run
yarn build:firebase
,yarn start:firebase
, but I'm now having issues with the deployment. The first time I ranyarn deploy
it eventually threw anunknown 403 http error
(paraphrasing), so I split thedeploy script
in two:And if I now run them separately, they go through successfully, and I can see them on the firebase functions and hosting tabs. But when I then try to visit my firebase project url, I get a Server Error in the browser window (see screenshot below) and
GET https://my-application-3356a.web.app/ 500
in the dev console. When I check the functions logs, many things have happened which look like errors, but I can't expand any of them to see details.Here's the function logs from a single page request:
I'm taking another break now, but when I get back to it, I'm gonna start working through what I can see in the logs and try to make more progress. But again, if anyone else finds, or know of a quicker/easier solution, please reply to this comment.
I finally have it deployed and working (as best as I think I can get it to work). The last problem was that I had
@nuxtjs/axios
in mypackage.json
but not infunctions/package.json
- once I added that, it deployed and has been working fine.But now that all is said and done and it's working, everytime I request a page from hosting, it does like 10+ function invocations on firebase, and I don't know why. But I suppose that's beyond the scope of this article, so this is where I'll be calling it a day. I hope my overly long comment can help someone in the future.
Siiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu, tenia el mismo problemaaa, gracias en serio Selemene!!! (vean el anime de dota xd)
Gracias en serio!
Just wanted to say a big thank you for taking the time for writing this. It really saved my day.
As I encountered some issues (not related to your tutorial) just wanted to share in case it's helpful for others:
1) Lint Error when deploying the function related to the "then" clause of the promise.
Solution: turn the function code into async/await:
First of all, thank you for this article, it's pretty awesome!
Although I am struggling with one issue for some time now and really can't figure it out.
In my nuxt app I have a server middleware with sendMessage function accessible under
/api/contact
routenuxt.config.js
:I can't make it work with Firebase configuration. Should I move
~/api/contact
to thefunctions
directory?Should I define it as a separate Firebase function or import somehow to the
nuxtssr
function?I would appreciate any tips ;)
Hey Bartłomiej, thank you. I'm glad you liked it.
I had to do the exact same thing, you can check how I did it here
In short, I had to add a route to catch post method on 'api/contact' in here at the end of the file.
Tell me if you need any deeper explanations
That clarified a lot, thank you!
One more question: after following steps from the article I can't use
yarn dev
anymore. It looks like my plugins are nowundefined
on page render and Nuxt throwsCannot read property ... of undefined
error instead of rendering my page.yarn build:firebase && yarn start:firebase
works fine.Do you have any idea what may be wrong? Do I need some additional configuration in
src/server/index.js
to make it work again?Weird, i get the same error...
I'll investigate on this when i get some free time (so rare these days :D)
Did you guys manage to solve this issue? I'm having the same error.
Found the solution in the comment below... just run yarn clean before running the yarn dev.
Sr ,I'm having the same error. And your link github is 404. How do you solve this issue? Tks.
Found the index.js he was talking about
github.com/KiritchoukC/kiritchoukc...
const functions = require('firebase-functions')
const { Nuxt } = require('nuxt')
const express = require('express')
const contact = require('./contact')
const app = express()
app.use(express.json())
const config = {
/**
const nuxt = new Nuxt(config)
let isReady = false
const readyPromise = nuxt
.ready()
.then(() => {
isReady = true
})
.catch(() => {
process.exit(1)
})
async function handleRequest(req, res) {
if (!isReady) {
await readyPromise
}
res.set('Cache-Control', 'public, max-age=1, s-maxage=1')
await nuxt.render(req, res)
}
app.post('/api/contact', contact)
app.get('*', handleRequest)
app.use(handleRequest)
exports.nuxtssr = functions.https.onRequest(app)
Thank you for the guide, I have succesfully deployed to Firebase
I was able to build and deploy, but if I run yarn dev it shows error
My node version is 10.20.1
UPDATE
run "yarn clean" solved the issue. If somebody experience the same thing maybe should try "yarn clean" first before bumping your head to the wall
I ended up doing a bunch of things like the clean script and then i was puzzled that the site half ran even though my dev server wasn't running. Ended up going to chrome dev tools > application > clear storage. Bam, all good.
hello thanks for the tutorial
i tried this out i ran into some issues and i dont seem to know what is wrong
here is the error i got
sh: cross-env: command not found
npm ERR! file sh
npm ERR! code ELIFECYCLE
npm ERR! errno ENOENT
npm ERR! syscall spawn
npm ERR! quiccly@1.0.0 dev:
cross-env NODE_ENV=development nodemon src/server/index.js --watch server
npm ERR! spawn ENOENT
npm ERR!
npm ERR! Failed at the quiccly@1.0.0 dev script.
npm ERR! This is probably not a problem with npm. There is likely additional logging output above.
npm WARN Local package.json exists, but node_modules missing, did you mean to install?
npm ERR! A complete log of this run can be found in:
npm ERR! /Users/Legendary/.npm/_logs/2020-08-08T01_16_18_348Z-debug.log
so far i have installed nodemon and i dont seem to be using express for the project config from scratch
i don't have cross-envs installed as well
Hey, thank you so much for the guide. Really helpful. Is the configuration different for a single page application? I have followed the instructions but the app brings a server error.
it raises the following error on setting debug to true
Renderer resources are not loaded! Please check possible console errors and ensure dist (D:\work\lorenzo_dry_cleaners\functions\.nuxt\dist\server) exists.
The configuration is much different for SPA, it is very simple: you run nuxt build, which will create a dist file and setup firebase to use dist instead on public and then deploy. You do not need functions.
Thank you so much for writing this!!
I've been pulling my hair out for ages trying to get a universal nuxt app deployed with firebase.
After following your article, I have it working running the start:firebase script, however when I deploy and follow the url I get a "500 Internal Server Error" :(
Would very much appreciate any help.
P.s. the firebase function logs just say "Function execution took 9 ms, finished with status code: 500"
Glad I could help!
That's odd. Do you have your code hosted somewhere? I could take a look
Really appreciate the response.
I started again with a blank nuxt project and built it up from there which is working so far :)
Thanks for the article; really helped me. I'm new to web development and evaluating several technologies. Right now nuxt + firebase is on top of my list.
Did you make any comparison to e.g. ssr with next.js on firebase?
Do you think nuxt.js + firebase is the way to go or is there anything you didn't like; testing, dev process, deploy process, ...?
Hey Rob,
I'm glad the post helped.
I didn't do any kind of comparison but I guess the firebase part would be pretty much the same.
If you try with nextJs, I'd like to know how it went.
Hi
Thank you for a great article and code!
I installed on my local machine and everything is working fine, except when I added a simple middleware to the project, that use the 'redirect' function to redirect to the 'inspire' page.
Problem: When running in local environment ('yarn run dev')
The root page isn't redirected properly
I guess this is a problem within the server/index.js file.
Can you help?
Thank you
Yalon
I managed to solve this - Thanks
Thank you so much, this guide really helped me a lot to deploy my project. It's working on Firebase right now but i'm having a "Error: [vuex] must call Vue.use(Vuex) before creating a store instance." error on local environment.
I tried everything i know but could'nt find a way to make it working. Just to make sure, could it be that i changed the node version from 8 to 10? Or anything else?
Here is the folder structure:
thepracticaldev.s3.amazonaws.com/i...
I've had issues when trying to change node version so you could try that.
I didn't use VueX in my project. Is your code hosted somewhere so I can have a look ?
hello, it worked perfect, but it doesn't show me the home page,
I get this message
Welcome
Firebase Hosting Setup Complete
You're seeing this because you've successfully setup Firebase Hosting. Now it's time to go build something extraordinary!
Hello Jesus,
Is your project hosted somewhere?
I'm also getting the same output, I did the exact same steps that the article provided.
Thanks for this tutorial, but I do have some questions:
I tried installing Express by hand (wasn't offered as option by create-nuxt-app) and installed both cross-env and nodemon and got the folders moved to "src" and made the updates to nuxt.config.js and package.json - but that's as far as I come.
I have no errors at the moment, but I have no running site/page either.