# Run Blueprint-generated Microservices and Micro Frontends in Dev Mode

# Overview

This tutorial will take you through running an Entando project (microservice and micro frontends) in a local development environment. If you haven't generated your Entando project yet, start with the Generate Microservices and Micro Frontend tutorial first.

The steps below assume you are working in the top-level project directory.

# CLI Steps

The following steps make use of the Entando ent prj command. See the Manual Steps section below for a more detailed description of what the individual commands do.

  1. Startup Keycloak. This uses docker-compose under the hood. Since this is using Docker it will continue to run in the background until you stop it via ent prj ext-keycloak stop. You can also view its logs using ent prj ext-keycloak logs.
ent prj ext-keycloak start
  1. Startup the Spring Boot application containing your microservices. The logs will be shown on the console and you can stop the application via CTRL+C.
ent prj be-test-run
  1. Startup one or more of the frontend widgets, each from its own shell. You can stop the application using CTRL+C. This command runs React in development mode so any changes you make to the source files should be immediately seen in the browser.
ent prj fe-test-run

# Manual Steps

# Start Keycloak using docker-compose

  1. Startup the Keycloak server:
  docker-compose -f src/main/docker/keycloak.yml up

# Notes:

  • If you have to install docker-compose you can follow this guide: https://docs.docker.com/compose/install/ (opens new window)
  • By default docker-compose will recreate the Keycloak container (and reset the H2 database) each time it is started. You can make the following changes to persist Keycloak changes across restarts:
    • Modify the following line in your src/main/docker/keycloak.yml
'-Dkeycloak.migration.strategy=OVERWRITE_EXISTING',

and replace it with this

'-Dkeycloak.migration.strategy=IGNORE_EXISTING',
  • In the same file, add a persistent volume under volumes:
 - ./keycloak-db:/opt/jboss/keycloak/standalone/data

Keycloak changes should now be persistent. You can reset your Keycloak database by emptying the src/main/docker/keycloak-db directory and restarting the container.

# Start the microservice

  1. Start the generated Microservice executing the command:

    ./mvnw
    

# Notes:

If you want to reset the widget data (as example if you deleted all rows from the table widget) if during the generation of the microservice you selected "H2 with disk-based persistence" you can delete the target folder, restart the microservice and the data will be regenerated.

# Start the table widget

Now you can start your generated table widget:

  1. Go to the table widget folder in your project:

    cd ui/widgets/<your-entity-name>/tableWidget
    
  2. Then install and start your widget executing the command:

    npm install && npm start
    
  3. When the widget is started a browser window is opened and the widget URL is loaded

  4. If you’re not logged in you’re redirected to the login page.

  5. Log in using:

    Username: user
    Password: user
    
  6. After the login process you’ll be redirected to the widget page and you can see the table widget with some generated data.

# Start the form widget

Now you can start your generated form widget:

  1. If you are running another widget, stop it clicking Ctrl+C in your widget command line window

  2. Go to the form widget folder in your project:

    cd ui/widgets/<your-entity-name>/formWidget
    
  3. Then install and start your widget executing the command:

    npm install && npm start
    
  4. When the widget is started a browser window is opened with and the widget URL is loaded

  5. If you’re not logged in you’re redirected to the login page.

  6. Log in using:

    Username: user
    Password: user
    
  7. You’ll be redirected to the widget page and you can see the widget form with the ID 1 loaded.

# Form widget notes:

If you want to load other data you have to change the index.html file in the folder:

cd ui/widgets/<your-entity-name>/formWidget/public

and change the id attribute in this line:

<my-entity-form service-url="%REACT_APP_SERVICE_URL%" id="1" />

# Start the details widget

You can also start your generated details widget:

  1. If you are running another widget, stop it clicking Ctrl+C in your widget command line window

  2. Go to the details widget folder in your project:

    cd ui/widgets/<your-entity-name>/detailsWidget
    
  3. Then install and start your widget executing the command:

    npm install && npm start
    
  4. When the widget is started a browser window is opened with and the widget URL is loaded

  5. If you’re not logged in you’re redirected to the login page.

  6. Log in using:

    Username: user
    Password: user
    
  7. You’ll be redirected to the widget page and you can see the widget form with the ID 1 loaded.

# Widget Details notes:

If you want to load other data you have to change the index.html file in the public folder:

cd ui/widgets/<your-entity-name>/detailsWidget/public

and change the "id" attribute in this line:

<my-entity-details service-url="%REACT_APP_SERVICE_URL%" id="1" />

# Notes

# Change Keycloak dev settings

If you want to change your Keycloak settings to use another keycloak installation (not the docker-compose pre-configured one) or if you want to change the service-url of your widget you can change the parameters set in the .env.local file that was generated by the entando-blueprint in the root folder of your react widgets:

cd ui/widgets/<your-entity-name>/tableWidget

then edit the file .env.local

By default this variables are set to:

REACT_APP_SERVICE_URL=http://localhost:8081/services/<your-application-name>/api
REACT_APP_KEYCLOAK_URL=http://localhost:9080/auth
REACT_APP_KEYCLOAK_REALM=jhipster
REACT_APP_KEYCLOAK_CLIENT_ID=web_app

# The service-url Variable

The service-url variable is the Microservice API URL.

# User is not authenticated message

When you run the widgets if you see the message: User is not authenticated. This means that probably your keycloak application is not running so please check if the docker-compose command is still in execution.