Railway•15mo ago

Deploying a mono repo, python backend, nextjs frontend, SQL database

I'm currently trying to deploy my repo with the following setup. Python flask API - /backend directory NextJS Frontend -/frontend directory I have a docker-compose file that creates these two and a SQL database. Whats the best way to deploy this on railway?

Solution:

can you send the compose file so I can get a better idea of what's going on? but at a high level, your railway project will require 3 services, a service for the frontend, a service for the backend, and a service for the database...

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45 Replies

Percy•15mo ago

Project ID: b9906d9a-fef1-41f1-ab48-5a9a7c735512

alcamechOP•15mo ago

b9906d9a-fef1-41f1-ab48-5a9a7c735512 The docker-compose file is in the root, the /backend directory has the script to initial the database.

.
├── docker-compose.yml
├── backend/
├── frontend/
├── README.md
├── requirements.txt
└── runtime.txt

.
├── docker-compose.yml
├── backend/
├── frontend/
├── README.md
├── requirements.txt
└── runtime.txt

My gitrepo structure

Solution

Brody•15mo ago

alcamechOP•15mo ago

Thanks for the quick response @Brody I have 3 services running, but my frontend is having problems talking to the backend b9906d9a-fef1-41f1-ab48-5a9a7c735512 locally my frontend would reference the python api in code 127.0.0.1:5000/endpoitn I have a environment variable setup for the internal networking now backend.railway.internal do I need to setup the port as well for the flask api?

Brody•15mo ago

yes this is a private network, it works the same as when you are developing locally, so you do indeed need to specify a port in the request url one thing to note, the private network is ipv6 only, so you may need to bind to [::] with gunicorn I think by default gunicorn only binds to 0.0.0.0 but that's an ipv4 address

alcamechOP•15mo ago

so my app run needs to look something like if name == 'main': app.run(host='::' debug=True) Sorry, I'm reading up on this topic now im using flask

Brody•15mo ago

you want to use gunicorn, otherwise you will be starting a development server, and it even warns to never use that in a production environment

alcamechOP•15mo ago

I will set this up, thank you.

Brody•15mo ago

here's an example repo https://github.com/alphasecio/flask/tree/main note the Procfile, and you'd also need to add Gunicorn=<latest version number> to your requirements.txt and as for the start command with the --bind flag, you'd want to use this format instead web: gunicorn main:app -b [::]:$PORT and make sure you have set a PORT service variable to 5000 in the flask's railway service

alcamechOP•15mo ago

Thanks, I believe im using a dockerfile for the backend so I will make changes accordingly there. I can add the procfile to the container? or does it need to be outside of the container

Brody•15mo ago

if you are using a Dockerfile then a Procfile is irrelevant, just change your CMD instruction in your Dockerfile accordingly

alcamechOP•15mo ago

FROM ubuntu:latest

WORKDIR /app

COPY . /app

RUN apt-get update && \
    apt-get install -y python3-pip && \
    pip3 install --upgrade pip && \
    pip3 install --no-cache-dir -r requirements.txt && \
    apt-get clean

ENV PORT 5000
EXPOSE $PORT

CMD gunicorn main:app -b [::]:$PORT

FROM ubuntu:latest

WORKDIR /app

COPY . /app

RUN apt-get update && \
    apt-get install -y python3-pip && \
    pip3 install --upgrade pip && \
    pip3 install --no-cache-dir -r requirements.txt && \
    apt-get clean

ENV PORT 5000
EXPOSE $PORT

CMD gunicorn main:app -b [::]:$PORT

I believe this is correct

Brody•15mo ago

I'd honestly recommend letting Railway build your app with nixpacks instead of using a dockerfile

alcamechOP•15mo ago

Okay, can I have it ignore the dockerfile?

Brody•15mo ago

you'd have to rename or remove the Dockerfile

alcamechOP•15mo ago

I typically use them for local dev. I will rename

Brody•15mo ago

maybe to Dockerfile.dev or something So without the Dockerfile you'd go back to needing the Procfile

alcamechOP•15mo ago

Im seeing errors related to the python dependencies now.

Brody•15mo ago

quick question, your nextjs is going to call the flask service over the private network right?

alcamechOP•15mo ago

Yes, that is what I would like I believe I need a higher python version

Brody•15mo ago

and next is calling the flask service only from the backend of the next app, right?

alcamechOP•15mo ago

the nextjs app is frontend only. Its calling my api in the components. useEffect, fetch calls.

Brody•15mo ago

then you can't call the private networking domain, you need to call the public domain for the flask app

alcamechOP•15mo ago

Noted rebuilding with 3.11

Brody•15mo ago

the frontend is public and accessed by the public, so it in turn also needs to be able to call the public domain

alcamechOP•15mo ago

Redeploying services now.

Brody•15mo ago

what method did you use to specify 3.11

alcamechOP•15mo ago

NIXPACKS_PYTHON_VERSION variable

Brody•15mo ago

that works

alcamechOP•15mo ago

no port

Brody•15mo ago

right because you can only expose your app publicly on port 443, but you don't need to specify that because it's implied with https

alcamechOP•15mo ago

Mmmm I have the variable set in my frontend for the backend API but im not seeing anything in the api logs. I try to curl and nothing shows up

Brody•15mo ago

show me the variable?

alcamechOP•15mo ago

HEALIX_BACKEND_API=https://healixai-backend-production.up.railway.app My frontend uses process.env.HEALIX_BACKEND_API backend logs

2023-09-24 15:51:45 +0000] [1] [INFO] Starting gunicorn 21.2.0
[2023-09-24 15:51:45 +0000] [1] [INFO] Listening at: http://[::]:5000 (1)
[2023-09-24 15:51:45 +0000] [1] [INFO] Using worker: sync
[2023-09-24 15:51:45 +0000] [9] [INFO] Booting worker with pid: 9

2023-09-24 15:51:45 +0000] [1] [INFO] Starting gunicorn 21.2.0
[2023-09-24 15:51:45 +0000] [1] [INFO] Listening at: http://[::]:5000 (1)
[2023-09-24 15:51:45 +0000] [1] [INFO] Using worker: sync
[2023-09-24 15:51:45 +0000] [9] [INFO] Booting worker with pid: 9

Brody•15mo ago

can you please replace the variable value with a reference value? https://docs.railway.app/develop/variables#reference-variables looks good to me, does something not work?

alcamechOP•15mo ago

I think its a frontend issue, let me run some other curl commands.

Brody•15mo ago

please implement this

alcamechOP•15mo ago

Doing this now

Brody•15mo ago

show me the value you come up with please

alcamechOP•15mo ago

API_URL=https://${{ HealixAI-Backend.RAILWAY_PUBLIC_DOMAIN }}

Brody•15mo ago

you didn't need to use the same variable name, you could stick with the name you already had, but the value side of things looks good

alcamechOP•15mo ago

I think the issue was my api reference needed to be appended with NEXTPUBLIC redeploying now MMmm now getting a 405 method not allowed on the post routes on the frontend. I can curl everything though. I think the scope of this is resolved.

Brody•15mo ago

make sure you are using https in your requests

alcamechOP•15mo ago

Everything is working as expected now. Thanks for all your help! Excited to be building on railway

Brody•15mo ago

awsome, welcome to railway!

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Deploying a mono repo, python backend, nextjs frontend, SQL database