Angular-cli: can ng serve build files in a physical directory?

[keslavi]

Please provide us with the following information:

OS?

Windows 2008 server

Versions.

angular-cli: 1.0.0-beta.24
node: 6.9.1
os: win32 x64
@angular/common: 2.4.1
@angular/compiler: 2.4.1
@angular/core: 2.4.1
@angular/forms: 2.4.1
@angular/http: 2.4.1
@angular/platform-browser: 2.4.1
@angular/platform-browser-dynamic: 2.4.1
@angular/router: 3.4.1
@angular/compiler-cli: 2.4.1

Repro steps.

run ng serve

The log given by the failure.

not an error

Mention any other details that might be useful.

---

ng serve builds and serves the files in memory. Is it possible to make ng serve build and serve from a physical directory instead? /dist/dev, for example?

I'm constrained by my environment's authentication to run within IIS and therefore need a location I can attach a virtual directory to .

I realize I could concurrently do an ng build but that seems wasteful.

[gelliott181]

First and foremost: Do not serve production using ng serve. This is a blanket warning because it's just not safe. You're trusting a generic, minimal configuration to secure your app.

IIS has a couple ways to serve these apps, and each has pros and cons. The method I prefer is to run a back end server (Hapi, Express) on a high number port, then use URL Rewrite to turn IIS into a reverse proxy. The back end then serves your dist folder just like any production Angular app. If you have a lot of services on various ports and need a lot of choice in your stack this might be a good, extendable option.

The other one is to literally serve the dist folder. Angular 2 is built into a static set of files and needs no real processing on the local server. Build it, set your IIS config and baseHref, and away you go! More Details

[keslavi]

{clarification: i'm not doing this in prod, it's on the local dev box for development purposes.}

Thank you, gelliott, I'm looking at your answer now.

my hope is to change a file, press save, and have the changes reflected in the IIS location, similar to using gulp watch to retrigger the build.

because of the authentication in this case (siteminder) I doubt URL rewrite will work; it's already being redirected in IIS to inject headers and cookies. Yes, it hurts my head too, but that's my constraint.

With Angular-seed i do literally serve the dist/dev folder. ng serve doesn't have an output directory though. Therefore I was hoping for a way to configure ng serve to build to a physical directory.

I can think of a hackish way, such as adding a gulp watch to build on file changes, but trying to work within the cli.

[gelliott181]

ng build --watch will watch the build folder and automatically build on changes.

The production comment is a boilerplate warning I give out in case a less well versed sysadmin sees this. Some devs don't understand the implications of a running a dev server vs a hardened production server.

[keslavi]

{doh} thank you

[filipesilva]

Closing as @gelliott181 has answered it, cheers!

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