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Chapter 1. Introduction to Application Development with Node.js

This section explains the basic concepts of application development with Red Hat runtimes. It also provides an overview about the Node.js runtime.

1.1. Overview of Application Development with Red Hat Runtimes

Red Hat OpenShift is a container application platform, which provides a collection of cloud-native runtimes. You can use the runtimes to develop, build, and deploy Java or JavaScript applications on OpenShift.

Application development using Red Hat Runtimes for OpenShift includes:

  • A collection of runtimes, such as, Eclipse Vert.x, Thorntail, Spring Boot, and so on, designed to run on OpenShift.
  • A prescriptive approach to cloud-native development on OpenShift.

OpenShift helps you manage, secure, and automate the deployment and monitoring of your applications. You can break your business problems into smaller microservices and use OpenShift to deploy, monitor, and maintain the microservices. You can implement patterns such as circuit breaker, health check, and service discovery, in your applications.

Cloud-native development takes full advantage of cloud computing.

You can build, deploy, and manage your applications on:

OpenShift Container Platform
A private on-premise cloud by Red Hat.
Red Hat CodeReady Studio
An integrated development environment (IDE) for developing, testing, and deploying applications.

This guide provides detailed information about the Node.js runtime. For more information on other runtimes, see the relevant runtime documentation.

1.2. Overview of Node.js

Node.js is based on the V8 JavaScript engine from Google and allows you to write server-side JavaScript applications. It provides an I/O model based on events and non-blocking operations that enables you to write efficient applications. Node.js also provides a large module ecosystem called npm. Check out Additional Resources for further reading on Node.js.

The Node.js runtime enables you to run Node.js applications and services on OpenShift while providing all the advantages and conveniences of the OpenShift platform such as rolling updates, continuous delivery pipelines, service discovery, and canary deployments. OpenShift also makes it easier for your applications to implement common microservice patterns such as externalized configuration, health check, circuit breaker, and failover.

Red Hat provides different supported releases of Node.js. For more information how to get support, see Getting Node.js and support from Red Hat.

1.2.1. Supported Architectures by Node.js

Node.js supports the following architectures:

  • x86_64 (AMD64)
  • IBM Z (s390x) in the OpenShift environment
  • IBM Power Systems (ppc64le) in the OpenShift environment

1.2.2. Support for Federal Information Processing Standard (FIPS)

The Federal Information Processing Standards (FIPS) provides guidelines and requirements for improving security and interoperability across computer systems and networks. The FIPS 140-2 and 140-3 series apply to cryptographic modules at both the hardware and software levels.

The Federal Information Processing Standard (FIPS) Publication 140-2 is a computer security standard developed by the U.S. Government and industry working group to validate the quality of cryptographic modules. See the official FIPS publications at NIST Computer Security Resource Center.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) provides an integrated framework to enable FIPS 140-2 compliance system-wide. When operating in the FIPS mode, software packages using cryptographic libraries are self-configured according to the global policy.

To learn about compliance requirements, see the Red Hat Government Standards page.

Red Hat build of Node.js runs on a FIPS-enabled RHEL system and uses FIPS-certified libraries provided by RHEL.

1.2.2.1. Additional resources

1.2.2.2. Verifying that Node.js is running in FIPS mode

You can use crypto.fips to verify that Node.js is running in FIPS mode.

Prerequisites

  • FIPS is enabled on the RHEL host.

Procedure

  1. In your Node.js project, create an application file named, for example, app.js.

  2. In the app.js file, enter the following details: 

    const crypto = require('crypto');
console.log(crypto.fips);
  3. Save the app.js file.

Verification

  • In your Node.js project, run the app.js file: 

    node app.js

    If FIPS is enabled, the application prints 1 to the console. If FIPS is disabled, the application prints 0 to the console.

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