netreconlab/parse-server repository overview

Parse Server is an open source backend that can be deployed to any infrastructure that can run Node.js.

⁠ ⁠

⁠Our Sponsors

Our backers and sponsors help to ensure the quality and timely development of the Parse Platform.

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Parse Server works with the Express web application framework. It can be added to existing web applications, or run by itself.

The full documentation for Parse Server is available in the wiki⁠. The Parse Server guide⁠ is a good place to get started. An API reference⁠ and Cloud Code guide⁠ are also available. If you're interested in developing for Parse Server, the Development guide⁠ will help you get set up.

• Getting Started⁠
  • Running Parse Server⁠
    • Compatibility⁠
      • Node.js⁠
      • MongoDB⁠
      • PostgreSQL⁠
    • Locally⁠
    • Docker Container⁠
    • Saving an Object⁠
    • Connect an SDK⁠
  • Running Parse Server elsewhere⁠
    • Sample Application⁠
    • Parse Server + Express⁠
• Configuration⁠
  • Basic Options⁠
  • Client Key Options⁠
  • Email Verification and Password Reset⁠
  • Custom Routes⁠
    • Example⁠
    • Reserved Paths⁠
    • Parameters⁠
  • Custom Pages⁠
  • Using Environment Variables⁠
  • Available Adapters⁠
  • Configuring File Adapters⁠
  • Idempotency Enforcement⁠
  • Localization⁠
    • Pages⁠
      • Localization with Directory Structure⁠
      • Localization with JSON Resource⁠
      • Dynamic placeholders⁠
      • Reserved Keys⁠
      • Parameters⁠
  • Logging⁠
• Live Query⁠
• GraphQL⁠
  • Running⁠
    • Using the CLI⁠
    • Using Docker⁠
    • Using Express.js⁠
  • Checking the API health⁠
  • Creating your first class⁠
  • Using automatically generated operations⁠
  • Customizing your GraphQL Schema⁠
  • Learning more⁠
• Upgrading to 3.0.0⁠
• Want to ride the bleeding edge?⁠
• Contributing⁠
• Contributors⁠
• Sponsors⁠
• Backers⁠

⁠Getting Started

The fastest and easiest way to get started is to run MongoDB and Parse Server locally.

⁠Running Parse Server

Before you start make sure you have installed:

• NodeJS⁠ that includes npm
• MongoDB⁠ or PostgreSQL⁠(with PostGIS⁠ 2.2.0 or higher)
• Optionally Docker⁠

⁠Compatibility

⁠Node.js

Parse Server is continuously tested with the most recent releases of Node.js to ensure compatibility. We follow the Node.js Long Term Support plan⁠ and only test against versions that are officially supported and have not reached their end-of-life date.

⁠MongoDB

Parse Server is continuously tested with the most recent releases of MongoDB to ensure compatibility. We follow the MongoDB support schedule⁠ and only test against versions that are officially supported and have not reached their end-of-life date.

⁠PostgreSQL

Parse Server is continuously tested with the most recent releases of PostgreSQL and PostGIS to ensure compatibility. We follow the PostGIS docker tags⁠ and only test against versions that are officially supported and have not reached their end-of-life date.

⁠Locally

$ npm install -g parse-server mongodb-runner
$ mongodb-runner start
$ parse-server --appId APPLICATION_ID --masterKey MASTER_KEY --databaseURI mongodb://localhost/test

Note: If installation with -g fails due to permission problems (npm ERR! code 'EACCES'), please refer to this link⁠.

⁠Docker Container

$ git clone https://github.com/parse-community/parse-server
$ cd parse-server
$ docker build --tag parse-server .
$ docker run --name my-mongo -d mongo

⁠Running the Parse Server Image

$ docker run --name my-parse-server -v config-vol:/parse-server/config -p 1337:1337 --link my-mongo:mongo -d parse-server --appId APPLICATION_ID --masterKey MASTER_KEY --databaseURI mongodb://mongo/test

Note: If you want to use Cloud Code⁠, add -v cloud-code-vol:/parse-server/cloud --cloud /parse-server/cloud/main.js to the command above. Make sure main.js is in the cloud-code-vol directory before starting Parse Server.

You can use any arbitrary string as your application id and master key. These will be used by your clients to authenticate with the Parse Server.

That's it! You are now running a standalone version of Parse Server on your machine.

Using a remote MongoDB? Pass the --databaseURI DATABASE_URI parameter when starting parse-server. Learn more about configuring Parse Server here⁠. For a full list of available options, run parse-server --help.

⁠Saving an Object

Now that you're running Parse Server, it is time to save your first object. We'll use the REST API⁠, but you can easily do the same using any of the Parse SDKs⁠. Run the following:

$ curl -X POST \
-H "X-Parse-Application-Id: APPLICATION_ID" \
-H "Content-Type: application/json" \
-d '{"score":1337,"playerName":"Sean Plott","cheatMode":false}' \
http://localhost:1337/parse/classes/GameScore

You should get a response similar to this:

{
  "objectId": "2ntvSpRGIK",
  "createdAt": "2016-03-11T23:51:48.050Z"
}

You can now retrieve this object directly (make sure to replace 2ntvSpRGIK with the actual objectId you received when the object was created):

$ curl -X GET \
  -H "X-Parse-Application-Id: APPLICATION_ID" \
  http://localhost:1337/parse/classes/GameScore/2ntvSpRGIK

// Response
{
  "objectId": "2ntvSpRGIK",
  "score": 1337,
  "playerName": "Sean Plott",
  "cheatMode": false,
  "updatedAt": "2016-03-11T23:51:48.050Z",
  "createdAt": "2016-03-11T23:51:48.050Z"
}

Keeping tracks of individual object ids is not ideal, however. In most cases you will want to run a query over the collection, like so:

$ curl -X GET \
  -H "X-Parse-Application-Id: APPLICATION_ID" \
  http://localhost:1337/parse/classes/GameScore

// The response will provide all the matching objects within the `results` array:
{
  "results": [
    {
      "objectId": "2ntvSpRGIK",
      "score": 1337,
      "playerName": "Sean Plott",
      "cheatMode": false,
      "updatedAt": "2016-03-11T23:51:48.050Z",
      "createdAt": "2016-03-11T23:51:48.050Z"
    }
  ]
}

To learn more about using saving and querying objects on Parse Server, check out the Parse documentation⁠.

⁠Connect an SDK

Parse provides SDKs for all the major platforms. Refer to the Parse Server guide to learn how to connect your app to Parse Server⁠.

⁠Running Parse Server elsewhere

Once you have a better understanding of how the project works, please refer to the Parse Server wiki⁠ for in-depth guides to deploy Parse Server to major infrastructure providers. Read on to learn more about additional ways of running Parse Server.

⁠Sample Application

We have provided a basic Node.js application⁠ that uses the Parse Server module on Express and can be easily deployed to various infrastructure providers:

• Heroku and mLab⁠
• AWS and Elastic Beanstalk⁠
• Google App Engine⁠
• Microsoft Azure⁠
• SashiDo⁠
• Digital Ocean⁠
• Pivotal Web Services⁠
• Back4app⁠
• Glitch⁠
• Flynn⁠

⁠Parse Server + Express

You can also create an instance of Parse Server, and mount it on a new or existing Express website:

var express = require('express');
var ParseServer = require('parse-server').ParseServer;
var app = express();

var api = new ParseServer({
  databaseURI: 'mongodb://localhost:27017/dev', // Connection string for your MongoDB database
  cloud: './cloud/main.js', // Path to your Cloud Code
  appId: 'myAppId',
  masterKey: 'myMasterKey', // Keep this key secret!
  fileKey: 'optionalFileKey',
  serverURL: 'http://localhost:1337/parse' // Don't forget to change to https if needed
});

// Serve the Parse API on the /parse URL prefix
app.use('/parse', api);

app.listen(1337, function() {
  console.log('parse-server-example running on port 1337.');
});

For a full list of available options, run parse-server --help or take a look at Parse Server Configurations⁠.

⁠Configuration

Parse Server can be configured using the following options. You may pass these as parameters when running a standalone parse-server, or by loading a configuration file in JSON format using parse-server path/to/configuration.json. If you're using Parse Server on Express, you may also pass these to the ParseServer object as options.

For the full list of available options, run parse-server --help or take a look at Parse Server Configurations⁠.

⁠Basic Options

• appId (required) - The application id to host with this server instance. You can use any arbitrary string. For migrated apps, this should match your hosted Parse app.
• masterKey (required) - The master key to use for overriding ACL security. You can use any arbitrary string. Keep it secret! For migrated apps, this should match your hosted Parse app.
• databaseURI (required) - The connection string for your database, i.e. mongodb://user:[email protected]/dbname. Be sure to URL encode your password⁠ if your password has special characters.
• port - The default port is 1337, specify this parameter to use a different port.
• serverURL - URL to your Parse Server (don't forget to specify http:// or https://). This URL will be used when making requests to Parse Server from Cloud Code.
• cloud - The absolute path to your cloud code main.js file.
• push - Configuration options for APNS and GCM push. See the Push Notifications quick start⁠.

⁠Client Key Options

The client keys used with Parse are no longer necessary with Parse Server. If you wish to still require them, perhaps to be able to refuse access to older clients, you can set the keys at initialization time. Setting any of these keys will require all requests to provide one of the configured keys.

• clientKey
• javascriptKey
• restAPIKey
• dotNetKey

⁠Email Verification and Password Reset

Verifying user email addresses and enabling password reset via email requires an email adapter. As part of the parse-server package we provide an adapter for sending email through Mailgun. To use it, sign up for Mailgun, and add this to your initialization code:

var server = ParseServer({
  ...otherOptions,
  // Enable email verification
  verifyUserEmails: true,

  // if `verifyUserEmails` is `true` and
  //     if `emailVerifyTokenValidityDuration` is `undefined` then
  //        email verify token never expires
  //     else
  //        email verify token expires after `emailVerifyTokenValidityDuration`
  //
  // `emailVerifyTokenValidityDuration` defaults to `undefined`
  //
  // email verify token below expires in 2 hours (= 2 * 60 * 60 == 7200 seconds)
  emailVerifyTokenValidityDuration: 2 * 60 * 60, // in seconds (2 hours = 7200 seconds)

  // set preventLoginWithUnverifiedEmail to false to allow user to login without verifying their email
  // set preventLoginWithUnverifiedEmail to true to prevent user from login if their email is not verified
  preventLoginWithUnverifiedEmail: false, // defaults to false

  // The public URL of your app.
  // This will appear in the link that is used to verify email addresses and reset passwords.
  // Set the mount path as it is in serverURL
  publicServerURL: 'https://example.com/parse',
  // Your apps name. This will appear in the subject and body of the emails that are sent.
  appName: 'Parse App',
  // The email adapter
  emailAdapter: {
    module: '@parse/simple-mailgun-adapter',
    options: {
      // The address that your emails come from
      fromAddress: '[email protected]',
      // Your domain from mailgun.com
      domain: 'example.com',
      // Your API key from mailgun.com
      apiKey: 'key-mykey',
    }
  },

  // account lockout policy setting (OPTIONAL) - defaults to undefined
  // if the account lockout policy is set and there are more than `threshold` number of failed login attempts then the `login` api call returns error code `Parse.Error.OBJECT_NOT_FOUND` with error message `Your account is locked due to multiple failed login attempts. Please try again after <duration> minute(s)`. After `duration` minutes of no login attempts, the application will allow the user to try login again.
  accountLockout: {
    duration: 5, // duration policy setting determines the number of minutes that a locked-out account remains locked out before automatically becoming unlocked. Set it to a value greater than 0 and less than 100000.
    threshold: 3, // threshold policy setting determines the number of failed sign-in attempts that will cause a user account to be locked. Set it to an integer value greater than 0 and less than 1000.
    unlockOnPasswordReset: true, // Is true if the account lock should be removed after a successful password reset. Default: false.
}
  },
  // optional settings to enforce password policies
  passwordPolicy: {
    // Two optional settings to enforce strong passwords. Either one or both can be specified.
    // If both are specified, both checks must pass to accept the password
    // 1. a RegExp object or a regex string representing the pattern to enforce
    validatorPattern: /^(?=.*[a-z])(?=.*[A-Z])(?=.*[0-9])(?=.{8,})/, // enforce password with at least 8 char with at least 1 lower case, 1 upper case and 1 digit
    // 2. a callback function to be invoked to validate the password
    validatorCallback: (password) => { return validatePassword(password) },
    validationError: 'Password must contain at least 1 digit.' // optional error message to be sent instead of the default "Password does not meet the Password Policy requirements." message.
    doNotAllowUsername: true, // optional setting to disallow username in passwords
    maxPasswordAge: 90, // optional setting in days for password expiry. Login fails if user does not reset the password within this period after signup/last reset.
    maxPasswordHistory: 5, // optional setting to prevent reuse of previous n passwords. Maximum value that can be specified is 20. Not specifying it or specifying 0 will not enforce history.
    //optional setting to set a validity duration for password reset links (in seconds)
    resetTokenValidityDuration: 24*60*60, // expire after 24 hours
  }
});

You can also use other email adapters contributed by the community such as:

• parse-smtp-template (Multi Language and Multi Template)⁠
• parse-server-postmark-adapter⁠
• parse-server-sendgrid-adapter⁠
• parse-server-mandrill-adapter⁠
• parse-server-simple-ses-adapter⁠
• parse-server-mailgun-adapter-template⁠
• parse-server-sendinblue-adapter⁠
• parse-server-mailjet-adapter⁠
• simple-parse-smtp-adapter⁠
• parse-server-generic-email-adapter⁠
• parse-server-api-mail-adapter⁠

⁠Custom Routes

Caution, this is an experimental feature that may not be appropriate for production.

Custom routes allow to build user flows with webpages, similar to the existing password reset and email verification features. Custom routes are defined with the pages option in the Parse Server configuration:

⁠Example

const api = new ParseServer({
  ...otherOptions,

  pages: {
    enableRouter: true, // Enables the experimental feature; required for custom routes
    customRoutes: [{
      method: 'GET',
      path: 'custom_route',
      handler: async request => {
        // custom logic
        // ...
        // then, depending on the outcome, return a HTML file as response
        return { file: 'custom_page.html' };
      }
    }]
  }
}

The above route can be invoked by sending a GET request to: https://[parseServerPublicUrl]/[parseMount]/[pagesEndpoint]/[appId]/[customRoute]

The handler receives the request and returns a custom_page.html webpage from the pages.pagesPath directory as response. The advantage of building a custom route this way is that it automatically makes use of Parse Server's built-in capabilities, such as page localization⁠ and dynamic placeholders⁠.

⁠Reserved Paths

The following paths are already used by Parse Server's built-in features and are therefore not available for custom routes. Custom routes with an identical combination of path and method are ignored.

⁠Parameters