Deploy to Heroku

The following documents how to setup and deploy uptime to Heroku. Some of these steps could be combined but are separated for clarity.

Create Heroku App

$ heroku apps:create heroku-uptime

Add MongoLab Add-on

$ heroku addons:add mongolab

Add WebSSocket Support

$ heroku labs:enable websockets

Add PaperTrail (Optional, but very handy for debugging)

$ heroku addons:add papertrail

Heroku creates the environment variable, MONGODB_URI but we are still forced to provide a username and password (see bootstrap.js). Set your config variables. Mileage seems to improve if the URI is fully deconstructed.

$ heroku config
=== heroku-uptime Config Vars
MONGOLAB_URI:         mongodb://YourAwesomeUsername:YourAwesomePassword@<subdomain.mongolab.com>:<port>/YourAwesomeDatabaseName

$ heroku config:add MONGOLAB_USERNAME=YourAwesomeUsername MONGOLAB_PASSWORD=YourAwesomePassword
Setting config vars and restarting uptime-demo... done, v2
MONGOLAB_USERNAME: YourAwesomeUsername
MONGOLAB_PASSWORD: YourAwesomePassword
MONGOLAB_DATABASE: YourAwesomeDatabaseName
MONGOLAB_SERVER: <subdomain.mongolab.com>:<port>

Set the environment for node-config

$ heroku config:add NODE_ENV=demo

Create the config/demo.js file. A .js file is used instead of a .yaml file so environment variables can be used. Remember, the name of this file needs to correspond to the name of the environment set in the previous step!

// demo.js

module.exports = {
  mongodb: {
    user:     process.env.MONGOLAB_USERNAME,
    password: process.env.MONGOLAB_PASSWORD,
    database: process.env.MONGOLAB_DATABASE,
    server:   process.env.MONGOLAB_SERVER
  },
  monitor: {
        apiUrl: process.env.UPTIME_API_URL  
  },
  verbose: false
}

Add the new config file to git

git add config/demo.js

And commit

git commit -m "Initial config"

Push your repo to Heroku

$ git push heroku master

Navigate to your app, https://heroku-uptime.herokuapp.com. Note the use of the HTTPS endpoint.

You're now monitoring uptime in the cloud!