使用Azure调试Node.js

Question

I have been fooling around with Node.js and Azure. I have created a simple worker role which supports socket connections. I'm trying to debug my application but don't really know how, since it is essentially a socket server. To make matters worse I haven't figured out a way to write to console or log data within this worker role. I'm hoping that someone has figure out a good way to go about debugging Node.js in Azure. Thanks for the help in advanced.

Answer 1

When i was initially developing under Nodejs as a socket server too, i was directly running and debugging node.exe from WebStorm so it was acceptable to just console.log() or util.inspect() and see activity happen on WebStorm's console window.

Of course when we deploy to Windows Azure that was not going to help as there appeared to be no way to see the runtime console window of the launched node.exe process in the server even if we remote desktop in. After trying out a couple of logging libraries, the only one that actually could save to a file was log4js.

I have a logger object which is exposed to the rest of the application, so they do not have to know about the actual implementation library.

var log4js = require('log4js');

// The logger helper utilises log4js under the covers.
// Serves as a wrapper from the rest of the application.
log4js.replaceConsole();
log4js.configure({
    appenders: [
        { type: 'console' },
        { type: 'file', filename: 'log/socket.log', category: 'socket' }
    ]
});
var logger = log4js.getLogger('socket');

So the information will be logged to the E: or F:\\approot\\log\\socket.log file in the deployed server.

Then use a tailing program like baretail to observe the real-time activity as they get logged.

Answer 2

if you're running in the emulator, you can see your logs in the Emulator GUI (right click on the emulator icon). If you're running in Azure, your best bet is to log to a blob storage. You can also enable remote desktop to access Windows Azure VM remotely.