Debugging JavaScript Deployed to a Remote Server

Last modified: 11 October 2023

Required plugins:

Javascript and TypeScript, JavaScript Debugger -  The plugins are bundled with CLion and enabled by default.

note

Debugging of JavaScript code is only supported in Google Chrome and in other Chromium-based browsers.

Before you start

What is a remote web server?

In CLion, any server with the document root outside the current project is called remote. This server may be actually running on a physically remote host or on your machine.

For example, if your project is in C:/CLionProjects/MyProject and the web server document root is C:/XAMPP/htdocs, for CLion this web server is remote.

How do I synchronize my application sources on the server with their local copies in my CLion project?

To debug an application on a remote web server, you need to have the copies of its sources in a CLion project. To synchronize local and remote sources, create a deployment configuration as described in Remote server configuration and Synchronization with web server.

Debugging an application on a remote server

  1. Set the breakpoints in the JavaScript code, as required.

  2. Create a run/debug configuration of the JavaScript Debug type:

    Go to Run | Edit Configurations, then in the Edit Configurations dialog, in the Edit Configurations dialog that opens, click the Add button (the Add button) on the toolbar and select JavaScript Debug from the list.

  3. In the Run/Debug Configuration: JavaScript Debug dialog that opens, specify the URL address at which the application is running. This URL address should be a concatenation of the Web server root URL and the path to the HTML file relative to the web server document root in accordance with server access configuration. For more information, refer to Synchronization with web server.

    Click OK to save the configuration settings.

  4. Choose the newly created configuration in the Select run/debug configuration list on the toolbar and click the Debug button Start the debugger. The HTML file specified in the run configuration opens in the chosen browser and the Debug tool window appears.

  5. In the Debug tool window, proceed as usual: step through the program, stop and resume the program execution, examine it when suspended, view actual HTML DOM, run JavaScript code snippets in the Console, and so on.

tip

By default, a debugging session starts in a new window with a custom Chrome user data. To open a new Chrome instance with your familiar look-and-feel, configure Chrome in CLion to start with your user data. For more information, refer to Starting a debugging session with your default Chrome user data.

Example

Suppose you have a simple application that consists of an index.html file and an App.js file, where index.html references App.js.

Configuring mappings

Mappings set correspondence between files on a web server and their local copies. You need mappings:

  • When your application is deployed and running on a remote web server.

  • When you have defined several resource root folders in addition to the project root.

In most cases, CLion sets path mappings automatically by reusing mappings from the deployment configuration. If your application structure is complicated, additional manual configuration is required.

Configure mappings

  1. Create a debug configuration of the type JavaScript Debug as described in Debugging an application.

  2. In the Remote URLs of local files area, map the files and folders to URL addresses of files and folders on the server according to the currently used deployment configuration, see Mapping local folders to folders on the server and the URL addresses to access them.

See also

Procedures

Reference