# Deploy your Node js app into production with Nginx and SSL installation(Step by Step tutorial) # Introduction In this article, I will easily explain to you How to deploying your node js app for production professionally. You can use AWS EC2, Digital Ocean or any other hosting platforms as per your requirement. I am using the AWS EC2 instance for this tutorial. # AWS Amazon Web Services is a very popular and reliable platform to host our application on top of their servers. There are many types of amazon’s services that we can use to host our app, but we will use EC2 (Elastic Compute Service). It is free and provides a very customized configuration during the creation process. We can create an instance: a set amount of resources initialized (OS, disk space, ram, etc). # EC 2 Why EC2? Because it’s free and provide very customizable configurations to the end-user. We can select our favourite Linux based operating system and install all the required utilities and software on that OS. # Steps That we follow: 1. Create an Account on Aws 2. Launch an EC2 Instance 3. SSH into your instance 4. Setup instance for running node app - Install Node js - Clone your project repository from GitHub 6. Test your app 7. Setup for production - Setup PM2 for keeping your app running - Setup ufw Firewall 8. NGINX Installation and configuration 9. Add domain Name (Optional) 10. Add SSL with LetsEncrypt ## 1. Create an Account on AWS. ------------------------------- Go to https://aws.amazon.com/ and create a new AWS account. If you have already registered login to your AWS console. A new account will get a free tier of Amazon EC2, Amazon S3 and Amazon DynamoDb services for 12 months. Choose Personal Account type and provide the required information ![Screenshot from 2021-04-15 16-27-53.png](https://cdn.hashnode.com/res/hashnode/image/upload/v1618484446841/56c9Hjyge.png) ![Screenshot from 2021-04-15 16-28-33.png](https://cdn.hashnode.com/res/hashnode/image/upload/v1618484384633/1-S9inLcF.png) ## 2. Launch an EC2 Instance. ------------------------------- If you complete the previous step you will redirect to the AWS console. You can see AWS services under the **AWS Services** section. Click on the **EC2** under **Compute** or Seach on the search bar on the top of the console. Then it will open the ec2 dashboard page ![AWS Management C.png](https://cdn.hashnode.com/res/hashnode/image/upload/v1628333379416/1XjJgcVe0.png) On the opened page click on the **Launch instance** button under the **create instance section**. ![Dashboard _ EC2 .png](https://cdn.hashnode.com/res/hashnode/image/upload/v1628333692163/aRRNpnsXb.png) On the next page, you need to configure your AWS EC2 Instance. ### Step 1: Choose an Amazon Machine Image (AMI) > An AMI is a template that contains the software configuration (operating system, application server, and applications) required to launch your instance. Click the Select button of _Ubuntu Server 20.04 LTS (HVM), SSD Volume Type_ ![Launch instance .png](https://cdn.hashnode.com/res/hashnode/image/upload/v1628334782943/E_hAa8g-0.png) ### Step 2: Choose an Instance Type > Amazon EC2 provides a wide selection of instance types optimized to fit different use cases. Instances are virtual servers that can run applications. They have varying combinations of CPU, memory, storage, and networking capacity, and give you the flexibility to choose the appropriate mix of resources for your applications. You can select any different instances as your use cases [Learn more](https://aws.amazon.com/ec2/instance-types/) about instance types and how they can meet your computing needs. Select **t.micro** which is eligible for a free trial and click *next* button ![Launch instance (1).png](https://cdn.hashnode.com/res/hashnode/image/upload/v1628335353150/VtWtj_cLA0.png) ### Step 3: Configure Instance Details > Configure the instance to suit your requirements. You can launch multiple instances from the same AMI, request Spot instances to take advantage of the lower pricing, assign an access management role to the instance, and more. Keep all the values as default and **click next**. ![Launch instance (2).png](https://cdn.hashnode.com/res/hashnode/image/upload/v1628336229022/V0eEiIevH.png) NB: You can edit these default fields as you need in your cases ### Step 4: Add Storage > You can attach additional EBS volumes and instance store volumes to your instance, or edit the settings of the root volume. You can also attach additional EBS volumes after launching an instance, but not instance store volumes. [Learn more](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AWSEC2/latest/UserGuide/Storage.html?icmpid=docs_ec2_console) about storage options in Amazon EC2. Select volume size and type as need and click next and skip the add tag section by clicking the next button once more. Here I have selected the following. ![Launch instance (3).png](https://cdn.hashnode.com/res/hashnode/image/upload/v1628336878055/nv3AFtUJo_.png) ### Step 6: Configure Security Group > A security group is a set of firewall rules that control the traffic for your instance. On this page, you can add rules to allow specific traffic to reach your instance. For example, if you want to set up a web server and allow Internet traffic to reach your instance, add rules that allow unrestricted access to the HTTP and HTTPS ports. You can create a new security group or select from an existing one below. [Learn more](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/console/ec2/security-groups) about Amazon EC2 security groups. Click on Add Rule and set up **HTTP, HTTPS & Custom TCP rule** and type its source IP to the following IP. ``` 0.0.0.0/0, ::/0 ``` This will allow access to use the app anywhere in the internet world. We need to set up security stuff here as our node app security case. Then click **review and launch**. ![Launch instance (4).png](https://cdn.hashnode.com/res/hashnode/image/upload/v1628337304816/l_khPMv7E.png) ### Step 7: Review Instance Launch > In this section you can review your instance setups that we have done up to here. Click Launch to assign a key pair to your instance and complete the launch process. ![Launch instance (5).png](https://cdn.hashnode.com/res/hashnode/image/upload/v1628337965157/FmkU0SnMp.png) ### Final Step >A key pair, consisting of a public key and a private key, is a set of security credentials that you use to prove your identity when connecting to an EC2 instance Select create new key pair on the pop and enter a name for the key pair and click launch. And all set now you can click view instance and deploy your app on EC2 instance. ![Launch instance (6).png](https://cdn.hashnode.com/res/hashnode/image/upload/v1628339575303/8uFBSuxph.png) # 3. SSH into your instance Using your pem key pair ssh into the EC2 Instance. # 4. Setup instance for running node app ### Install node/NPM Enter the following in the terminal to install node ``` curl -sL https://deb.nodesource.com/setup_12.x | sudo -E bash - sudo apt install nodejs node --version``` ![Screenshot from 2021-08-07 19-15-36.png](https://cdn.hashnode.com/res/hashnode/image/upload/v1628343954207/R20DhCTdY.png) ### Clone your project repository from GitHub ``` git clone yourproject.git ``` > This is the code I am using here to deploy ![raycast-untitled.png](https://cdn.hashnode.com/res/hashnode/image/upload/v1628344673250/YDmOT7ODw.png) # 5. Test your app #### Install dependencies ``` cd yourproject npm install npm start (or whatever your start command) ``` #### Check app on web ![Instance details.png](https://cdn.hashnode.com/res/hashnode/image/upload/v1628345348337/lWb0L0VAq.png) Get your instance IPv4 address from the AWS console and test the URL. ``` http:: ``` >For example: If your **IPv4** address is **11.222.33.444**, And app running on **PORT : 4000** you need to browse **http:11.222.33.444:4000** ![Screenshot from 2021-08-07 19-33-48.png](https://cdn.hashnode.com/res/hashnode/image/upload/v1628345681898/XL-A_Dr9Y.png) #### Stop the node app ``` # stop app ctrl+C ``` # Setup for production ### 👉 Setup PM2 process manager to keep your app running ``` sudo npm i pm2 -g pm2 start server.js (or whatever your file name) # To make sure app starts when reboot pm2 startup ubuntu ``` The below are other commands of [PM2](https://pm2.keymetrics.io/) ``` # Other pm2 commands pm2 show app pm2 status pm2 restart app pm2 stop app pm2 logs (Show log stream) pm2 flush (Clear logs) ``` ### 👉 Setup ufw firewall ``` sudo ufw enable sudo ufw status sudo ufw allow ssh (Port 22) sudo ufw allow http (Port 80) sudo ufw allow https (Port 443) ``` # 9. NGINX Installation and configuration ``` sudo apt install nginx sudo nano /etc/nginx/sites-available/default ``` The above command will open file: **/etc/nginx/sites-available/default** in nano text editor. Remove the following block of code from the file ``` location / { # First attempt to serve request as file, then # as directory, then fall back to displaying a 404. try_files $uri $uri/ =404; } ``` And Add these Lines there ``` server_name yourdomain.com www.yourdomain.com; location / { proxy_pass http://localhost:4000; #whatever port your node app runs on proxy_http_version 1.1; proxy_set_header Upgrade $http_upgrade; proxy_set_header Connection 'upgrade'; proxy_set_header Host $host; proxy_cache_bypass $http_upgrade; } ``` >Then press ctrl + x and enter key then press ctrl + c to save the file. ``` # Check NGINX config file syntax # (If you fail in this step that means you have not correctly edited the Nginx config file) sudo nginx -t # Restart NGINX sudo service nginx restart ``` #### Now you can view your node app on your instance IPv4 without the usage of port in the end. Now its time to setup domain name (optional) ``` http: # example http:11.222.33.444 ``` # 9. Add domain Name Adding a domain name is not rocket science you can do that in simple steps. - Purchase a domain name from Godaddy or any other domain provider - Add an A record that points to your IPv4 > Now node app is accessble at *yourdomain.com* # 10. Add SSL with LetsEncrypt ``` sudo add-apt-repository ppa:certbot/certbot sudo apt-get update sudo apt-get install python-certbot-nginx sudo certbot --nginx -d yourdomain.com -d www.yourdomain.com # Only valid for 90 days, test the renewal process with certbot renew --dry-run ``` > Now you should see your app on https://yourdomain.com If you have enjoyed this article and hosted your app successfully feel free to support me by like, comment and share. [Instagram](https://www.instagram.com/jobins76400/) [GitHub](https://github.com/Jobin-S/) Buy Me A Coffee