How to debug Nodejs app running inside Docker container via Google Cloud

Question

I have found Google provides some guidelines on how to run Nodejs on a custom runtime environment. Everything seems fine and I am managing to start my Nodejs app on local machin

Answer 1

If you are using bridge networking for your containers, and you don't want to install node-inspector inside the same container as your node process, I've found this to be a convenient solution:

• In the main node.js container, map port 5858 to the host
• Run the main node process with debug enabled
• Use a separate container for running node-inspector
• Use host networking for the node-inspector container

This say, the node-inspector container will connect to localhost:5858 which will then be port mapped through to the main node container.

If you're running this on a public VM, I'd then recommend:

• Make sure port 5900 is not exposed publicly (e.g. by the firewall)
• Make sure the node inspector port (e.g. 8080) us exposed publicly, so you can connect to it

I wrote a few more details about it here: https://keylocation.sg/our-tech/debugging-nodejs-in-docker-using-node-inspector