Refactoring The-Internet: Deploying the web app to Render

We are well on our way to place a copy of my favorite test site, The-Internet, onto its new home on Render.com, a place where developers can deploy web apps using their free tier, much like Heroku in its heyday. Sure, web apps that live on the free tier of Render takes a minute or so to spin up, but, hey, you get what you pay for!

With our last blog post, we: 

• Examined using Google AI the Gemfile of the original The-Internet, a Ruby project at https://github.com/saucelabs/the-internet, hosting on the failing site, https://the-internet.herokuapp.com/
• Created a new copy of the web app onto my GitHub site, forking the original repo
• Updated the Ruby architecture of the web app per Google AI's findings. 
• Tested the web app could be deployed locally and pushed the changes to my GitHub site: https://github.com/tjmaher/the-internet
• Almost have the site at its new home at https://the-internet-8uaj.onrender.com/

With this blog post, we will create a new account on Render, a new project, and set up a new home for The-Internet.  

What the Heck is Render?

Render is a cloud platform as a service (PaaS) that allows developers to host websites, web applications, databases, and background services without having to manage underlying server infrastructure.

According to StartupIntros.com / Render: 

"Anurag Goel founded Render in 2018, serving as CEO. His insight stemmed from cloud infrastructure complexities, driving him to create a more accessible, reliable environment for developers. Goel aimed to empower teams to deliver products faster by abstracting underlying infrastructure challenges, leveraging his previous experience".

• Read: Founder Interviews: Anurag Goel of Render (2019): https://hackernoon.com/founder-interviews-anurag-goel-of-render-cfcad8e92dae

How to Set Up Render

According to https://render.com/docs/your-first-deploy

• Select "Sign Up For Render" to go to https://dashboard.render.com/register
• Select "GitHub" and log into your GitHub account, sharing your information with Render. 
• Select to host a web service. 
• Connect to my GitHub code repositories
• Chose to install Render on tmaher/the-internet

Render pre-filled: 

• The name of the project to "the-internet", the language to be "Docker", the branch to be "main". 
• Chose the free tier, using .01 CPUs and 512 MB RAM. Free instances spin down after a period of inactivity.
• Render had me create for my project a Render.yaml file:

services:

  - type: web

    name: the-internet-modern

    env: ruby

    buildCommand: |

      bundle config set --local without "development test"

      bundle install

    startCommand: bundle exec rackup -p $PORT -o 0.0.0.0

    envVars:

      - key: RUBY_VERSION

        value: "3.4.2"

• Selected "Deploy web service". 
• Since the-internet must be pretty common, it appended a four letter suffix to the url:  https://the-internet-8uaj.onrender.com/

... And it failed. It showed the message: HOST NOT PERMITTED

How To Fix Sinatra Problems

Why did going to https://the-internet-8uaj.onrender.com/ show: Host not permitted?

When I asked Google AI, it said that:

"Starting with version 4.1.0, Sinatra introduced strict, built-in security middleware called Rack::Protection::HostAuthorization. By default, this middleware blocks HTTP requests unless the accessing URL matches an allowed list (typically defaulting only to localhost). When Render routes traffic to your app through the-internet-8uaj.onrender.com, Sinatra flags it as an unrecognized hostname and throws a 403 Forbidden response with the body text 'Host not permitted'"

As a solution, it had me add to the existing server.rb file:

server.rb

class Protected < Sinatra::Base

  set :host_authorization, permitted_hosts: []

  register Sinatra::Flash

. . .

. . .

class Public < Sinatra::Base

  set :host_authorization, permitted_hosts: []

  helpers Sinatra::Cookies

As soon as I made the changes, and pushed them to GitHub. They automatically deployed to the website.. which took a while to load up after going to https://the-internet-8uaj.onrender.com/. 

After this brief interlude. going to https://the-internet-8uaj.onrender.com/login we see ... a Login Page!

So now, when I run a Playwright test framework, and I have it hooked up to test versus The-Internet / Login, I just need to remember to swap out the URL and add some time for the page to load. 

Feel free to use the website if you would like! 

Happy Testing!

-T.J. Maher
Software Engineer in Test

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