Demeteorizer

CLI tool to convert a Meteor app into a "standard" Node.js application. The resulting app contains a package.json file with all required dependencies and can be easily ported to your own servers or Node.js PAAS providers.

Demeteorizer's output is similar to meteor bundle except that it generates a package.json containing all required dependencies. This allows you to easily run npm install on the destination server, which is especially important for compiled modules.

Installing

Install Demeteorizer globally using npm

$ npm install -g demeteorizer

Usage

$ cd /path/to/meteor/app
$ demeteorizer [options]

-h, --help               output usage information
-V, --version            output the version number
-o, --output <path>      Output folder for converted application. Defaults to ./.demeteorized.
-r, --release <version>  The Meteor version. Defaults to latest installed.
-t, --tarball <path>     Output tarball path. If specified, creates a tar.gz of demeteorized application instead of directory.
-a, --app_name <name>    Value to put in the package.json name field. Defaults to the current directory name.
-j, --json <json>        JSON data to be merged into the generated package.json
-d, --debug              Bundle in debug mode (don't minify, etc).

Windows Support

Demeteorizer works on Windows; however, errors will occur when repeatedly running demeteorizer in Node.js versions prior to 0.12.4.

The workaround on earlier versions on Node.js is to delete to generated .demeteorized directory before rerunning demeteorizer.

Meteor 0.8.1 and Below

Meteor version 0.8.1 and below are only supported in Demeteorizer version v0.9.0 and Modulus CLI v1.1.0. For all other versions, use the latest version of Demeteorizer.

This is because the bundle command changed in 0.9 which makes backward compatibility impossible. :(

Examples

Convert the Meteor app in the current directory and output to ./.demeteorized

$ demeteorizer

Convert the Meteor app in the current directory and output to ~/meteor-app/converted

$ demeteorizer -o ~/meteor-app/converted

Running Resulting Application

Meteor applications make use of the following environment variables:

1. MONGO_URL='mongodb://user:password@host:port/databasename?autoReconnect=true'
2. ROOT_URL='http://example.com'
3. MAIL_URL='smtp://user:password@mailhost:port/' (optional)
4. PORT=8080 (optional, defaults to 80)

Note that demeteorized applications still require a MongoDB connection in order to correctly run. To run your demeteorized application locally, you will need MongoDB installed and running.

Run the app:

$ cd /your/output/directory
$ npm install
$ MONGO_URL=mongodb://localhost:27017/test PORT=8080 ROOT_URL=http://localhost:8080 node main

Full Example

The following steps will create a Meteor example app, convert it, and run it.

$ meteor create --example leaderboard
$ cd leaderboard
$ demeteorizer
$ cd .demeteorized
$ npm install
$ MONGO_URL=[your-url] PORT=8080 ROOT_URL=http://localhost:8080 node main.js

Modifying the Generated package.json

The --json option will allow you to pass arbitrary JSON data that will be added to the generated package.json. You can use this to override settings in package.json or to add arbitrary data.

settings.json

{
  "settings": {
    "key": "some-key-data",
    "services": {
      "some-service": {
        "key": "another-key"
      }
    }
  }
}

Add settings.json data to the generated package.json

$ demeteorizer --json "$(cat settings.json)"

The resulting package.json will have a settings property that includes the JSON from settings.json.

You can also use this to override settings

$ demeteorizer --json "{ \"engines\": { \"node\": \"0.12.x\" } }"

This will result in a package.json with the node engine set to 0.12.x.

Tarball

The --tarball option can be used to create a tar.gz of the application instead of putting the converted app in a directory.

$ demeteorizer --tarball /path/to/tarball.tar.gz

Debug

The --debug option is passed to the meteor bundle command indicating to meteor that the application should not be minified.

$ demeteorizer --debug

Support

Demeteorizer has been tested with the current Meteor example apps. If you find an app that doesn't convert correctly, throw an issue in Github - https://github.com/onmodulus/demeteorizer/issues

Release History

See releases.

License

The MIT License (MIT)

Copyright (c) 2015 Modulus

Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:

The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.