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Firebase as simple database to React app

Nathan Sebhastian on February 13, 2019

Firebase is an all-in-one backend as a service provider (BaaS) that provides database, authentication, cloud storage among their many services. In ...
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Andy Preston

Excuse me if I've missed something. But surely having your API key inside the create-react-app will expose your backend to abuse.

Someone with knowledge of JavaScript could easily find the API key within your code and use the key to write whatever they want to the database?

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Nathan Sebhastian

Oh none at all, you're right on point. I've also wondered the same thing until I came to this post:

javebratt.com/hide-firebase-api/

I won't put anything into my Firebase project except for this tutorial, so for all purpose I think it will be fine.

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Jeff

It is safe to include the config in your app. The Firebase docs address this:

A Firebase config file or config object associates your app with your Firebase project and its resources (databases, storage buckets, etc.).

The content is considered public, including your platform-specific ID (entered in the Firebase console setup workflow) and values that are specific to your Firebase project, like your API Key, Realtime Database URL, and Storage bucket name. Given this, use security rules to protect your data and files in Realtime Database, Cloud Firestore, and Cloud Storage.

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Robert

I ran into an issue with Firebase to where whenever my e.preventDefault() is right after my onSubmit handler, it will not add data to my db in prod. It works fine in development which is odd. Check out what I wrote:

onSubmit = e => {
e.preventDefault();
const { fullName, email, subject, message, error } = this.state;
let contactID = email;
db.collection("formContacts")
.doc(contactID)
.set({
fullName: fullName,
email: email,
subject: subject,
message: message
})
.then(
(window.location = "/formSuccess").this
.setstate({ ...INITIAL_STATE })
.catch(
(window.location = "/formError").this.setstate({ ...INITIAL_STATE })
)
);
};

Any thoughts?

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Nathan Sebhastian • Edited

Hello Robert, sorry for late reply. I don't know what's wrong by simply looking at your code. There may be several causes for it. I recommend you try these suggestions:
Does the catch call ever run when you do it?
Or maybe you had the wrong credentials for production environment?

If you don't have any React error in the console, most likely something is wrong in the process of saving your data to Firebase.

Hope this helps!

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Ethan Klein

Thanks for the clear tutorial Nathan.
Is it possible to connect a front-end-only react app to firebase WITHOUT using "test" mode. I've been struggling to successfully connect my react apps to firestore other than through "test" mode. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Also, i'm fairly certain other people have similar concerns as there isn't much on stack overflow, reddit, etc. to answer this question

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Mika Kaakinen

A good tutorial.

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Michael Caveney

Very handy, thanks for taking the time to write this up!

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ann lin

NOICE

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Edison Augusthy

waiting for new posts

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Hemant Patil

i am getting error while putting the mine keys of firebase project, so how to solve it?

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Nathan Sebhastian

What error did you see in the console? It might be something with the security rule

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EchoEye

Good tutorial and very useful. It works well in develop mode but during production build, it says something like:

"Reference error: IDBIndex is not defined" and cancels the build

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Sandor Dargo

Thanks for the article!

Is this going to be a series? Are you planning to write about Firebase as an authenticator?

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Nathan Sebhastian

Thank you Sandor! I actually haven't taught about that.. you just give me a new idea! I will try to come up with a more advanced Firebase integration. Stay tuned!