Deploy NodeJS App to AWS EC2 instance

1. Create Node App with Dockerfile and deploy to Github
2. Create EC2 Instance
3. SSH into EC2 Instance
4. Setup and Install EC2 Dependencies
5. Create Route 53
6. Purchase Namecheap Domain
7. Setup Nginx and HTTPS
8. Potential troubleshooting

Create a simple node express app

mkdir express_ec2
cd express_ec2 
mkdir src
touch src/index.js
npm init -y
npm i --save express
echo node_modules >> .gitignore

// src/index.js
let express = require('express')
const PORT = process.env.PORT || 3000

let app = express()

app.get('/', (req, res) => {
  res.send('hi')
})

// Custom 404 route not found handler
app.use((req, res) => {
  res.status(404).send('404 not found')
})

app.listen(PORT, () => {
  console.log(`Listening on PORT ${PORT}`);
})

Create Dockerfile

# // Dockerfile

# Select node version and set working directory
FROM node:8-alpine
RUN mkdir -p /usr/src/app
WORKDIR /usr/src/app

# Install app dependencies
COPY package.json /usr/src/app
RUN npm install

# Bundle app source
COPY . /usr/src/app

# Expose publc port and run npm command
EXPOSE 3000
CMD ["npm", "start"]

Deploy to github repo

git add .
git commit -m "initial commit"
git remote add origin "github repo"
git push origin master

Test locally by building docker image (check Docker desktop app is running)

docker build . -t <YOUR_APP_NAME>

Test locally by running the app. Expose port 3000 (we will later use Nginx reverse proxy to send HTTPS port 80 requests to localhost:3000)

docker run -p 3000:3000 <YOUR_APP_NAME>

• Login to AWS Management Console
• Select EC2 and select Launch Instance
• Choose latest Ubuntu Server
• Setup security groups including HTTP port 80 and HTTPS
• Create instance and create name of private key and download (you will need this to ssh login to your cloud instance)
• Create Elastic IP and associate to your instance. This will keep a fixed public IP address for your instance

• Find and select your running EC2 instance and click Connect then follow the instructions
• To asssist workflow create a folder named ssh in your root directory and include in .gitignore. You can keep your private key here and a textline of the ssh script. Then come back to this folder whenever you need to ssh

• SSH into instance
• Install docker into root directory

curl -fsSL https://get.docker.com -o get-docker.sh
sh get-docker.sh

• Run docker without sudo in ubuntu

cat /etc/passwd | grep ubuntu
sudo usermod -aG docker ubuntu

• Exit and ssh back in and check you can run docker without sudo

docker ps

• Same as what we did locally, create a docker image

docker build . -t <YOUR_APP_NAME>

• This time run it in background detatched mode so it continues running after you exit

docker run -d -p 3000:3000 -t <YOUR_APP_NAME>

• To get the container id

docker ps

• To see container logs

docker logs <YOUR_CONTAINER_ID>

• To stop the container

docker stop <YOUR_CONTAINER_ID>

• Install nvm

sudo apt-get update
curl -o- https://raw.githubusercontent.com/nvm-sh/nvm/v0.34.0/install.sh | bash

• Activate nvm

. ~/.nvm/nvm.sh

• Use nvm to install latest version of node

nvm install node

• Clone your repo

git clone "link_to_repo"

• Install pm2 (similar to forever)

// cd in root app folder and install pm2 globally
npm i -g pm2
// setup pm2 to start the server automatically on server restart
pm2 start index.js
pm2 save
pm2 startup
// After runnong pm2 startup command you will get a command starting with sudo. Copy and paste that command from sudo until end of next line and enter

• Search for Route53 Service
• Get started and create a hosted zone
• Create the hosted zone and enter the domain name you wil purchase from namecheap
• Once clicked you will see the NS records. Copy a record of these

• Purchase domain from namecheap and then set the Custom DNS to each of the NS records from Route53
• Connect your Route 53 to Namecheap. Copy the public "IPv4 Public IP" of your EC2 Instance. Hit create record set button and create 2 records below. One set name as empty while latter prefi with *. Copy into value the IPv4 Public IP address into reach

• SSH into EC2 Instance and setup nginx webserver

sudo apt-get install nginx

• Install certbot and build certificate

sudo apt-get install software-properties-common
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:certbot/certbot
sudo apt-get install python-certbot-nginx

• Make the certificate with the given domain names you have purchased. It may prompt for email

sudo certbot --nginx -d example.com -d www.example.com

• Remove default config file

sudo rm /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/default

• Create new file

cd /etc/nginx/sites-available/
sudo touch node
sudo vim /etc/nginx/sites-available/node

• Paste the following code in the file and replace example.com with your purchased domain and 3000 with your Node port

server {
  listen 80;
  listen [::]:80;
  server_name example.com www.example.com;
  return 301 https://$server_name$request_uri;
}

server {
  listen 443 ssl http2 default_server;
  listen [::]:443 ssl http2 default_server;
  server_name example.com www.example.com;

  location / {
    proxy_pass http://localhost:3000;
  }

  ssl_certificate /etc/letsencrypt/live/example.com/fullchain.pem;
  ssl_certificate_key /etc/letsencrypt/live/example.com/privkey.pem;
  ssl_protocols TLSv1 TLSv1.1 TLSv1.2;
  ssl_prefer_server_ciphers on;
  ssl_ciphers EECDH+CHACHA20:EECDH+AES128:RSA+AES128:EECDH+AES256:RSA+AES256:EECDH+3DES:RSA+3DES:!MD5;
  ssl_session_cache shared:SSL:5m;
  ssl_session_timeout 1h;
  add_header Strict-Transport-Security “max-age=15768000” always;
}

• Symlink config file to sites-enabled

sudo ln -s /etc/nginx/sites-available/node /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/node

• Restart nginx and apply

sudo service nginx restart

• If nginx error due to port 80 already in use. Find, kill and restart nginx

sudo fuser -k 80/tcp
sudo nginx start