Hertzway Rentals

Car rental platform - agencies list vehicles, customers book them.

Stack: React + Vite, Node/Express, MySQL

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Setup

Requirements: Node.js, MySQL

# install deps
npm install

# setup db
mysql -u root -p < database.sql

# configure env
cp server/.env.example server/.env
# edit server/.env with your db credentials

# run backend
cd server && node server.js

# run frontend (separate terminal)
cd client && npm run dev

Backend runs on http://localhost:4000
Frontend runs on http://localhost:5173

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Structure

car-rental/
├── client/          # React frontend
│   ├── src/
│   │   ├── api.js
│   │   ├── pages/
│   │   ├── components/
│   │   └── context/
│   └── public/img/
├── server/          # Express backend
│   ├── routes/
│   │   ├── auth.js
│   │   ├── cars.js
│   │   └── bookings.js
│   ├── server.js
│   └── db.js
└── database.sql

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Features

Agencies:

• Add/edit cars (model, plate, seats, daily rate)
• View all bookings

Customers:

• Browse available cars
• Book by date + duration
• Cars become unavailable after booking

Auth:

• Separate registration for customers/agencies
• Session-based auth with express-session

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Env vars

DB_HOST=localhost
DB_USER=root
DB_PASSWORD=your_password
DB_PORT=3306
DB_NAME=car_rental
SESSION_SECRET=random_secret_here
PORT=4000
CLIENT_URL=http://localhost:5173
SESSION_COOKIE_SECURE=false
SESSION_COOKIE_SAMESITE=lax

---

Notes

• Import database.sql to create tables (no seed data)
• Sessions expire after 24h
• Vite proxy handles /api requests to backend

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Production Deploy (Render + TiDB)

1) Prepare TiDB (MySQL protocol)

• Create database/user and run database.sql into it (tables: customers, agencies, cars, bookings).
• Ensure you have TiDB MySQL connection details: host, port, username, password, and database name (default: car_rental).

2) Render Backend (Node/Express)

Deploy car-rental/server as a Render Web Service.

Environment variables to set:

DB_HOST=<tidb_host>
DB_PORT=<tidb_mysql_port>
DB_USER=<tidb_username>
DB_PASSWORD=<tidb_password>
DB_NAME=car_rental
SESSION_SECRET=<random_string>
CLIENT_URL=<your_render_frontend_url>   # e.g. https://your-frontend.onrender.com
SESSION_COOKIE_SECURE=true              # required when SESSION_COOKIE_SAMESITE=none
SESSION_COOKIE_SAMESITE=none

3) Render Frontend (Vite/React)

Deploy the car-rental/client build to Render.

You must set VITE_API_BASE_URL at build time so the frontend knows where the API is:

VITE_API_BASE_URL=<your_render_backend_url>   # e.g. https://your-backend.onrender.com

The frontend will call: ${VITE_API_BASE_URL}/api/...