Suggest preact commands to run dev server on new port if 8080 is already being used

[reznord]

As of now, when we run a dev server using preact serve or preact watch by default opens on 8080 port.

If there is a process which runs on 8080 already, preact doesn't ask the user whether he wants to run on a new port. As of now it terminates the process.

It would be great if we can suggest the CLI to ask the user whether he wants to run on a different port.

[thangngoc89]

This would be a great addition. I have some code snippets I can paste here if you need it

[reznord]

I have some code snippets I can paste here if you need it

Cool, I'd love it

[thangngoc89]

this time, it's 3 lines

const getPort = require("get-port")

getPort(3000).then(port => {
	console.log(port);
	// Will use 3000 if available, otherwise fall back to a random port
});

if 3000 !== port, then ask user if they want to spawn in other port.

[thangngoc89]

on *nix, you can use this command this see which process is binding to a node, but it may require sudo

[rkostrzewski]

We can always simply spawn http server using 0 port. Even if not all servers accept port 0 we could spawn http server at port 0 get actual port & kill it.

[thangngoc89]

@rkostrzewski that's what get-port package doing.

'use strict';
const net = require('net');

const getPort = port => new Promise((resolve, reject) => {
	const server = net.createServer();

	server.unref();
	server.on('error', reject);

	server.listen(port, () => {
		const port = server.address().port;
		server.close(() => {
			resolve(port);
		});
	});
});

module.exports = preferredPort => preferredPort ?
	getPort(preferredPort).catch(() => getPort(0)) :
	getPort(0);

[reznord]

CRA does this in a pretty nice way !! I would just take the handling of PORT from CRA and use it here !! That is fine right?

[developit]

We can use the popular get-port module to handle this:

getPort(3000).then(port => {
    console.log(port);
    // Will use 3000 if available, otherwise fall back to a random port 
});

[rkostrzewski]

@thangngoc89 I didn't see that require call 😆

[thangngoc89]

@developit I talked about this and no one listen #179 (comment)

[reznord]

okay, so get-port it is !! I'll do it right away !!

[developit]

Whoops, forgot to read the whole thread @thangngoc89 - sorry about that! I like that get-port lets us specify a preferred port before grabbing a random one: that helps with documentation because we can say "then open http://localhost:3000" and newcomers will not have to look at the output to find their generated port.

[lukeed]

I think we should always be running a random port (if 8080 is taken). If a user passes --port and its in use, we should stop & exit with a message why.

[thangngoc89]

@lukeed I saw a discussions about this between @-gaearon and others. From UX pov, we should not spawn in random port (if 8080 is taken). Because users might spawning it in other terminal tab. instead, ask user what to do

[lukeed]

Okay 👍 Just reciting from what I've seen & have liked personally. Sounds good either way

[reznord]

get-port doesn't suggest a free port. We can do that with detect-port.

Any thoughts?

[thangngoc89]

@reznord What do you mean by free port? get-port return a new port in case preferred port was occupied

[reznord]

get-port return a new port in case preferred port was occupied

Oh, I didn't know this. Then we can go with get-port itself.