Deploy nodejs app on VPS (AWS EC2) using pm2

As deployment is an important part of development and every developer should know how to make their application available to the outside world.

In this blog, we're going to see how to create and deploy a nodejs http server to VPS.

Create http server in nodejs

• install nodejs if not already, from nodejs website.

• open terminal (powershell in windows) and navigate to your preferred directory where you want to create nodejs server.

• initialize node project by running following command

    npm init -y
  

• create a index.js file in this directory and open index.js file with your favourite text editor

• put below content in index.js file

    const http = require("http");
  
    http
      .createServer(function (req, res) {
        res.writeHead(200, { "Content-Type": "application/json" });
        res.write(JSON.stringify({ message: "hello from server" }));
        res.end();
      })
      .listen(8080, () => console.log("Server is running on PORT: 8080"));
  

• save the file.

Upload to github repository

• make sure you have a github account and setup ssh key with your device see connect using ssh.

• create new repository on github (make sure its visibility is public)

• open terminal again in same directory and initialize git repository

    git init
  

• add remote url to git repository

    git remote add origin <remote-ssh-url>
  

• add, commit changes and push to github.

    git add .
    git commit -m "http server"
    git push origin <branch-name>
  

  NOTE:- you can check your git branch using command

    # get git branch
    git branch
  

Create EC2 instance

• make sure you have AWS account.

• go to services and choose EC2 from all services

  

• choose launch instance

  

• fill out details

  • name: node server

  • choose OS as ubuntu

  • instance type: t2.micro

  • create a new key-pair and store it at a safe place as it will be required to login into our EC2 instance shell

  • create security group with allow ssh, http and https

  • configure storage: 10 Gb, type: gp3

  • click on launch instance

• click on services and choose EC2 then click on instances(running)

• here, you will see your newly created instance. Copy public IPv4 Address of EC2 instance

Login using SSH into it

• its time to login into our instance shell, open terminal and type

    ssh -i <key-pair_file> ubuntu@<IPv4_Address>
  

Install nodejs and pm2 package

• install nodejs using nvm

    curl -o- https://raw.githubusercontent.com/nvm-sh/nvm/v0.39.3/install.sh | bash
    source ~/.bashrc
    nvm install v20.15.1
  

• check if node is installed by running

    node -v
    npm -v
  

  if got version as output then node is installed

• install pm2 as global package

    npm install -g pm2
  

Deploy nodejs app

• copy github clone url from github repository

• create new directory nodeapp and change directory into it

    mkdir nodeapp
    cd nodeapp
  

• clone github repo

    git clone <repo-url>
    cd <repo-name>
  

• install packages (if any)

    npm install
  

• start nodejs app

    pm2 start index.js --name http-server
  

Accessing server

• open browser and go to

  http://<ec2-ipv4_address>:8080

you will see 'site can't be reached'.

now type following command into instance terminal

curl http://localhost:8080

here, you can see our app is running.

So, what's the problem?

As you can see, we can access our app inside our EC2 instance and not outside of it as we haven't opened port 8080.

Allow listening on port from outside

• open browser and go to instances section

• choose (tick) your instance and you will see many configuration options below

  

• choose security

• in inbound rules, click on security groups link

  

• tick security group from available list of security groups

• configuration options will be shown at below of them

• choose edit inbound rules from inbound rules section

• a set of available rules will be shown, click on Add rule

• fill out details for rule:

  • type: custom tcp

  • port range: 8080

  • source: custom

  • access url: 0.0.0.0/0

• click on save rules

• now, again try to open url into browser

  http://<ec2-ipv4_address>:8080

Hurray!, you deployed your first nodejs app.

Remember to manage your instance. If not in use, delete it as it may incur charges.