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Ollama Web Interface

A web interface to ollama

Ollama Web Interface Setup and Communication

The server.js file is necessary because it sets up an API endpoint that the web interface in index.html can communicate with to send and receive requests from the Ollama model. Here's a breakdown of what happens in each part:

  1. HTML File (index.html):

    • The HTML contains a form with a textarea for user input and a submit button.
    • When the user clicks the submit button, an event listener is triggered in JavaScript that fetches data from the /api/query endpoint using the POST method.
    • The fetch request sends the user's prompt to the backend server.

  2. Node.js Server (server.js):

    • This script runs a local HTTP server using Node.js Express framework.
    • It defines a single route (/api/query) that listens for POST requests from the client-side JavaScript code.
    • When this route receives a request, it extracts the prompt from the body of the request and sends it to the Ollama API (using axios in this case).
    • The Ollama API then processes the input prompt using the specified model (in this case, mistral), generating a response.
    • The server then converts the JSON string returned by the Ollama API into an array of JavaScript objects and sends it back to the client in its original format.

In summary, the server-side code (server.js) is required because it acts as an intermediary between the web interface (client-side JavaScript) and the Ollama model itself, allowing it to handle requests, communicate with the Ollama API, and relay the responses back to the client for display in the web interface.

Why not just use HTML for everything?

  1. Separation of Concerns: Separating the frontend UI logic (index.html) and backend server logic (server.js) helps in organizing code better and makes maintenance easier. It also avoids cluttering your client-side JavaScript with business logic or security concerns that are more appropriately handled on the server.
  2. Security: Keeping API endpoints on the server ensures they can't be accessed directly by end users, which is a crucial step towards securing your application. If you were to handle all interactions in index.html, it would expose internal APIs and potentially sensitive data or functionalities to potential attackers or malicious users.
  3. Performance: Handling computationally heavy tasks or network-intensive operations on the client side (in the browser) can lead to a poor user experience, as the browser might freeze or slow down. By offloading these tasks to the server with server.js, you ensure that the client remains responsive and improves overall performance.
  4. Scalability: When your application grows, handling everything in one file (index.html) can become unwieldy and harder to scale. Using a backend service like Express (in server.js) allows you to handle more requests efficiently, manage state better, and deploy services separately if needed.

Conclusion:

While it might seem simpler at first to bundle everything into one HTML file, splitting the responsibilities between client-side and server-side code is a best practice in web development that enhances maintainability, security, performance, and scalability. This separation of concerns allows for more robust, secure, and efficient applications.

CORS

Also, using server.js helps avoid Cross-Origin Resource Sharing (CORS) errors.

Here's how:

What is CORS?

Cross-Origin Resource Sharing (CORS) is a security feature implemented by web browsers to prevent JavaScript code from making requests to a different domain than the one that served the original (HTML, CSS, JS etc.). This is enforced by most modern web browsers.

When your index.html runs in a browser and tries to make an HTTP request to a different origin (domain) than the one it was served from (which would be typical if you're trying to communicate with an external API like Ollama), the browser will automatically block this request unless the server at the other origin explicitly allows it. This is where CORS comes in.

How does server.js handle CORS?

When you set up a server using Express (server.js), you can configure it to include specific headers that tell browsers whether or not they should allow requests from different origins.

This application fixed the cors error, even without adding the cors module.

But anyway, here is an example of how to set up the cors middleware:

const express = require('express');
const cors = require('cors');

const app = express();

// Enable CORS for all routes
app.use(cors());

// Your other routes go here...

app.listen(3002, () => {
  console.log('Server is running on port 3002');
});

This will allow any domain to make cross-origin requests to your server.

Install the cors package:

npm install cors
# or
yarn add cors