From Code to the Cloud:
A Step-by-Step Guide to Deploying Your Node.js App on AWS EC2 II
The part one dealt with the following:
- Setting up an AWS account
- Creating an EC2 instance
- Installing Node.js and NPM
- Creating a simple Node.js app
- Installing and configuring PM2
- Using SSH to connect to your EC2 instance
- Deploying your app to the EC2 instance
Read the part one here.
In this part, we will cover the following:
🎯 Using Nginx as a reverse proxy
🎯 Setting a subdomain for your app
🎯 Configuring SSL using certbot
Let's get the partyy started
Install the Nginx reverse proxy
ssh into your EC2 instance
ssh -i "your.pem" ubuntu@<your-ec2>
sudo su - # to get root access
Install nginx
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install nginx
check if nginx is installed
nginx -v #nginx version: nginx/1.18.0 (Ubuntu)
start nginx
Your nginx runs on port 80 by default, so ensure there are no other port on 80 for any service
sudo service nginx start
check if nginx is running
sudo service nginx status
Configure Nginx as a reverse proxy
Go to the nginx configuration file
vi /etc/nginx/sites-available/default
Add the following lines to the file
server {
listen 80;
server_name your-domain.com; # replace with your domain name
location / {
proxy_pass http://localhost:5000; # replace with your app's port
proxy_set_header Host $host;
proxy_set_header X-Real-IP $remote_addr;
proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-For $proxy_add_x_forwarded_for;
proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-Proto $scheme;
}
}
Save and exit the file
:wq
Test the configuration
sudo nginx -t
Restart nginx
sudo service nginx restart
Go the Route 53 and add a new record
- Create a new record and add the public IP address of your server
Installing Core from Snap
This is a snap package that provides the core functionality of snapd and the snap command-line tool. It is required to install other snaps.
sudo snap install core;
sudo snap refresh core
Remove Certbot if it's already installed
sudo apt remove certbot
Install Certbot
sudo snap install --classic certbot
Create a symbolic link
sudo ln -s /snap/bin/certbot /usr/bin/certbot
change the following lines to the server block
server {
listen 80;
server_name mysubdomain.com; # replace with your domain name
location / {
proxy_pass http://localhost:5000; # replace with your app's port
proxy_set_header Host $host;
proxy_set_header X-Real-IP $remote_addr;
proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-For $proxy_add_x_forwarded_for;
proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-Proto $scheme;
}
}
Check status and reload nginx
sudo nginx -t
sudo systemctl reload nginx
Run Certbot (obtain free ssl)
sudo certbot certonly --nginx -d mysubdomain.com
Verify certbot renewal
sudo systemctl status snap.certbot.renew.service
Enable automatic renewal
sudo certbot renew --dry-run
Conclusion
By following these steps, you can easily set up a subdomain on your server and obtain a free SSL certificate using Certbot. This will help you secure your website and improve its performance.
Top comments (1)
Very informative. Though regarding last part about SSL, one can get it from ACM for free too.