Cannot find module environment when running in server side with Angular Universal

Question

I have a simple Angular 4 app that I want to run in server side with Angular Universal (nodeJs server side rendering). I followed these steps to configure the Angular Universal with the angular-cli help and it's all good until I try to use the angular environment. When I try to access a property within the environment constant it works perfectly being rendered in client side (with ng serve) but in server side (ts-node src/server.ts) it throws the following error:

Error: Cannot find module 'environments/environment'
    at Function.Module._resolveFilename (module.js:470:15)
    at Function.Module._load (module.js:418:25)
    at Module.require (module.js:498:17)
    at require (internal/module.js:20:19)
    at Object.<anonymous> (C:\Dev\code-carama\src\app\auth.service.ts:3:1)
    at Module._compile (module.js:571:32)
    at Module.m._compile (C:\Dev\code-carama\node_modules\ts-node\src\index.ts:385:23)
    at Module._extensions..js (module.js:580:10)
    at Object.require.extensions.(anonymous function) [as .ts] (C:\Dev\code-carama\node_modules\ts-node\src\index.ts:388:12)
    at Module.load (module.js:488:32)

npm ERR! Windows_NT 10.0.14393
npm ERR! argv "C:\\Program Files\\nodejs\\node.exe" "C:\\Program Files\\nodejs\\node_modules\\npm\\bin\\npm-cli.js" "start"
npm ERR! node v7.10.0
npm ERR! npm  v4.2.0
npm ERR! code ELIFECYCLE
npm ERR! errno 1
npm ERR! [email protected] start: `ts-node src/server.ts`
npm ERR! Exit status 1
npm ERR!
npm ERR! Failed at the [email protected] start script 'ts-node src/server.ts'.
npm ERR! Make sure you have the latest version of node.js and npm installed.
npm ERR! If you do, this is most likely a problem with the code-carama package,
npm ERR! not with npm itself.
npm ERR! Tell the author that this fails on your system:
npm ERR!     ts-node src/server.ts
npm ERR! You can get information on how to open an issue for this project with:
npm ERR!     npm bugs code-carama
npm ERR! Or if that isn't available, you can get their info via:
npm ERR!     npm owner ls code-carama
npm ERR! There is likely additional logging output above.

npm ERR! Please include the following file with any support request:
npm ERR!     C:\Users\dima\AppData\Roaming\npm-cache\_logs\2017-06-05T12_00_03_595Z-debug.log

This is my server.ts:

import 'reflect-metadata';
import 'zone.js/dist/zone-node';
import { platformServer, renderModuleFactory } from '@angular/platform-server';
import { enableProdMode } from '@angular/core';
import { AppServerModuleNgFactory } from '../dist/ngfactory/src/app/app.server.module.ngfactory';
import * as express from 'express';
import { readFileSync } from 'fs';
import { join } from 'path';

const PORT = 4000;

enableProdMode();

const app = express();

let template = readFileSync(join(__dirname, '..', 'dist', 'index.html')).toString();

app.engine('html', (_, options, callback) => {
  const opts = { document: template, url: options.req.url };

  //it serves html from the compiled angular app from the server
  renderModuleFactory(AppServerModuleNgFactory, opts)
    .then(html => callback(null, html));
});

app.set('view engine', 'html');
app.set('views', 'src')

app.get('*.*', express.static(join(__dirname, '..', 'dist')));

app.get('*', (req, res) => {
  res.render('index', { req });
});

app.listen(PORT, () => {
  console.log(`listening on http://localhost:${PORT}!`);
});

And the simple service trying to access environment variables is the auth.service.ts:

import { Injectable } from '@angular/core';
import { environment } from 'environments/environment';

@Injectable()
export class AuthService {

  private userManager = null;
  constructor() { 
    console.log('AuthService instantiated in environment ' + environment.envName); //this will fail in server-side rendering
  }
}

Any idea what's going with nodeJs (or angular universal) not to find that environment module?

Thanks

Answer 1

In projects Angular6 change 'environments/environment' by 'src/environments/environment'