Memora Orchestrator

Docker Compose orchestration for the complete Memora application stack - a streamlined setup for running the application with all its components.

🌐 Live at: memora.tiberiusgh.com

Architecture Overview

The Memora application consists of three main components:

• Frontend: Web Components-based user interface
• Backend: Node.js API server with Firebase authentication
• Database: MongoDB for data persistence
• Nginx (Production): Reverse proxy and load balancer

Prerequisites

• Docker and Docker Compose installed
• The following repositories cloned in the same parent directory:

  parent-directory/
  ├── orchestrator/           # This repository
  ├── memora_back_end/       # Backend repository
  └── memora_front_end/      # Frontend repository
  

Quick Start

1. Clone All Repositories

# Clone the orchestrator (this repository)
git clone https://github.com/Memora-Tiberiusgh/orchestrator

# Clone backend and frontend repositories in the same directory
git clone https://github.com/Memora-Tiberiusgh/memora_back_end
git clone https://github.com/Memora-Tiberiusgh/memora_front_end
cd orchestrator

2. Environment Configuration

Configure the backend environment variables:

# Edit the backend .env file with your Firebase and other configuration
# Follow the setup instructions in the backend README

3. Choose Your Environment

Development Environment

# Start the development stack
docker-compose -f docker-compose.dev.yml up --build

# Or run in detached mode
docker-compose -f docker-compose.dev.yml up -d --build

Development Setup (docker-compose.dev.yml)

The development environment provides:

• Hot reload for both frontend and backend
• Volume mounting for live code changes
• Development-optimized containers
• Direct port access for debugging

Services:

• MongoDB: localhost:27017
• Backend API: localhost:8186
• Frontend: localhost:5173

Features:

• Automatic restart on code changes
• Development environment variables
• Node modules optimization with anonymous volumes
• Real-time synchronization with local file changes

# Development containers with volume mounting for hot reload
volumes:
  - ../memora_back_end:/backend
  - ../memora_front_end:/frontend
  - /backend/node_modules # Anonymous volume for node_modules
  - /frontend/node_modules

Production Setup (docker-compose.yml)

The production environment provides:

• Optimized containers built for production
• Environment variable configuration via .env file
• Proper restart policies
• Network isolation

Environment Variables (.env):

BACKEND_IMAGE=your-registry/memora-backend:latest
FRONTEND_IMAGE=your-registry/memora-frontend:latest

Building Production Images:

Before running the production compose, build and push your images:

# Build and tag backend image
cd ../memora_back_end
docker build -f Dockerfile -t your-registry/memora-backend:latest .
docker push your-registry/memora-backend:latest

# Build and tag frontend image
cd ../memora_front_end
docker build -f Dockerfile.prod -t your-registry/memora-frontend:latest .
docker push your-registry/memora-frontend:latest

Nginx Reverse Proxy (Production)

For production deployments, nginx acts as a traffic director that routes requests appropriately:

• API requests (/api/*) → Backend server (port 8186)
• Static assets and app routes → Frontend server (port 5173)

Nginx Configuration

Add this configuration to your nginx server:

server {
    listen 80;
    server_name your-domain.com; # Replace with your actual domain

    # Route API requests to backend container
    location /api/ {
        proxy_pass http://localhost:8186;
        proxy_set_header Host $host;
        proxy_set_header X-Real-IP $remote_addr;
        proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-For $proxy_add_x_forwarded_for;
        proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-Proto $scheme;
    }

    # Route all other requests to frontend container
    location / {
        proxy_pass http://localhost:5173;
        proxy_set_header Host $host;
        proxy_set_header X-Real-IP $remote_addr;
        proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-For $proxy_add_x_forwarded_for;
        proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-Proto $scheme;

        # Support for WebSocket connections (if needed for hot reload)
        proxy_http_version 1.1;
        proxy_set_header Upgrade $http_upgrade;
        proxy_set_header Connection "upgrade";
    }
}

Note: For production environments, you should configure SSL/HTTPS certificates. This involves setting up SSL certificates, configuring HTTPS listeners (port 443), and redirecting HTTP traffic to HTTPS. The specific SSL configuration will depend on your certificate provider and security requirements.

Container Overview

Service	Development Port	Production Port	Purpose
MongoDB	27017	27017	Database storage
Backend	8186	8186	API server
Frontend	5173	3000	Web application

Common Commands

Development Commands:

# Start development environment
docker-compose -f docker-compose.dev.yml up

# Rebuild and start (after code changes to Dockerfiles)
docker-compose -f docker-compose.dev.yml up --build

# View logs
docker-compose -f docker-compose.dev.yml logs -f [service-name]

# Stop all services
docker-compose -f docker-compose.dev.yml down

# Stop and remove volumes (clean slate)
docker-compose -f docker-compose.dev.yml down -v

Production Commands:

# Start production environment
docker-compose -f docker-compose.prod.yml up -d

# Update production deployment
docker-compose -f docker-compose.prod.yml pull
docker-compose -f docker-compose.prod.yml up -d

# View production logs
docker-compose -f docker-compose.prod.yml logs -f

# Scale services (if needed)
docker-compose -f docker-compose.prod.yml up -d --scale backend=2

Maintenance Commands:

# Execute commands in running containers
docker-compose exec backend npm run lint
docker-compose exec mongodb mongosh

# Access container shell
docker-compose exec backend sh
docker-compose exec frontend sh

# Monitor resource usage
docker stats

Deployment Strategies

Single Server Deployment:

Use the provided docker-compose files with nginx reverse proxy.

Container Registry Workflow:

1. Build images locally or in CI/CD
2. Push to container registry
3. Update .env with image references
4. Deploy using docker-compose.prod.yml

🤝 Contributing

1. Fork the repository
2. Create a feature branch
3. Test with both development and production compose files
4. Submit a pull request

License

This project is licensed under the MIT License.

Support

For issues and feature requests, please visit our GitHub Discussions or contribute to the project at GitHub organization.

Author

Tiberius Gherac - tiberius.gherac@gmail.com
First-year Web Development Student @ Linnaeus University
GitHub: @TiberiusGh

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