DEV Community: Brian W.

How to create a Node.js web server with cPanel

Brian W. — Wed, 26 Jun 2024 03:39:53 +0000

Welcome to this article, where I guide you on creating your own Node.js Express web server with cPanel. This guide will apply for most domain registrars which offer hosting services with cPanel, such as Namecheap or Hostgator, but for this tutorial, we will be using Spaceship Shared Hosting.

Spaceship is a domain registrar owned and operated by Namecheap which offers competitive domain pricing for most top TLDs. They offer a variety of different services for websites, such as website hosting and emails.

Without further ado, let's get started!

Before we continue, make sure you have a domain that is already added to your cPanel. If you already have this setup, go ahead and navigate to Software tab. Click the Setup Node.js App to start the process.

Once you're on the Node.js page, click Create Application and fill out the following details:

Node.js Version: Select a desired Node.js version for your web server. It's highly recommended that you select a higher Node.js version to ensure that Node.js is supported by npm and isn't outdated.
Application Mode: Select the option applicable in your case. If you are unsure of which option to select, select the Production option.
Application Root: This is the folder name that will contain all of the files for your Node.js App. Make sure the name isn’t the same as your domain, because all of the files will be served (yes, your code could be leaked!).
Application URL: In the dropdown, select the domain that will be used for your Node.js App.
Application Startup File: Enter the name of the main Javascript file, which will run whenever you start the Node.js App. For this tutorial, we will use index.js. (if you'd like to add any environment variables, you can add them now)

Once you fill out the details above, click the Create button to finish the process (be patient!).

After your Node.js App has been created, go back to your cPanel and locate the Files tab. Then, click the File Manager option to launch the file manager.

Once you're in the file manager, click the name of the folder that we created earlier for our Node.js App. When you open the folder, you may already see an index.js file located inside. Click the file, and then click Edit from the top bar to open the file.

In the index.js file, let's create some code for our Express server. Remove the old file contents, and enter the code below:



const express = require('express');
const http = require('http');
const app = express();

app.get('/', (req, res) => {
  res.send('Hello, world!');
});


const server = http.createServer(app);
server.listen();

Click the Save Changes button on the top-right of the screen, and go back to the file manager tab.

Next, we'll need to create a package.json file which will contain our dependencies. This is crucial for our Node.js App to run properly, and will allow us to install npm later on.

Click the + File option located on the left side of the top bar, and name the file package.json. Then, click Create New File to confirm your changes.

Open up the package.json file in the editor as we did previously, and insert the following JSON code:



{
  "name": "example-express-server",
  "version": "1.0.0",
  "description": "A simple Node.js Express web server.",
  "main": "index.js",
  "dependencies": {
    "express": "*"
  }
}

Click the Save Changes button to save the contents, and go back to the Node.js dashboard in cPanel.

Once you're back in the Node.js App dashboard, click the pencil icon (Edit your application) to open up your app. Scroll down and click the Run NPM Install button to install the dependencies in our package.json file.

In rare cases, you may receive an error like this:
An error occured during installation of modules. The operation was performed, but check availability of application has failed. Web application responds, but its return code "None" or content type before operation "text/html" doesn't equal to contet type after operation "text/html; charset=utf-8".
If you receive this error, don't worry! The process has still been completed successfully, and you may continue with the guide.

Once the process has finished, click the Restart button to start your Node.js App with the new updates. When your Node.js App restarts, open a new tab and visit your domain.

Oh no! When visiting your website, your browser may warn you that the connection is unsafe. In order to solve this issue, we'll need to generate valid SSL certificates! Don't worry, it isn't as complicated as it sounds.

Visit the cPanel dashboard, and navigate to the Security tab. Click the SSL/TLS Status option, and then locate your domain in the list provided.

Once you find your domain, click the + Include During AutoSSL option. Make sure to do this on the www subdomain of your site as well. Lastly, click the Run AutoSSL option to create an SSL certificate with Let's Encrypt. This process may take a few minutes, so be patient!

Once the SSL certificate process is completed, your cPanel page will refresh automatically. You will then see a green lock next to your domain name, with the label AutoSSL Domain Validated.

Lastly, go back to your website and refresh the page. The page will automatically redirect to HTTPS, and you will now see that your website is secure.

Congratulations! In this guide, you learned how to set up your own Node.js web server with Express using cPanel, and you set up SSL certificates to secure your website. If you found this guide useful, or if you have any questions, let me know in the comments below. Bye for now! 👋

How to create an SSL certificate with Let’s Encrypt

Brian W. — Wed, 26 Jun 2024 00:42:17 +0000

In this concise tutorial, I will cover how you can set up a trusted SSL certificate for free with Let’s Encrypt. SSL certificates are crucial for any website, because they encrypt data transmitted between the server and the user’s browser, helping ensure privacy and security. They also validate the website’s security, which can help your website gain trustworthiness.

First, launch your Linux terminal and run the following commands to install and run Certbot, which will allow us to generate a certificate:

sudo apt install snapd; # Only run if you don't have snapd installed
sudo snap install core; sudo snap refresh core; sudo snap install --classic certbot;

certbot certonly --manual;

Once you run the following commands, you will be asked to enter the domain name. Then, you will be prompted to verify your ownership of this domain by serving a file on your website. Follow the instructions to verify your website.

After you successfully verify your domain, Certbot will generate three different .pem files:

Private Key (privkey.pem): This file contains the private key, which is kept secret and is used to decrypt data that has been encrypted with the public key.
Certificate (cert.pem): This file contains the public key and other identifying information about your website and the Certificate Authority (CA).
Certificate Chain (chain.pem): This file contains the intermediate certificates that link your certificate back to the root certificate of the CA.

These files will likely be located in /etc/letsencrypt/live/yourdomain.com, unless otherwise stated by Certbot. You may now use the certificate for your website!

For example, you can use the following code to use your SSL certificates in Node.js:

const privateKey = fs.readFileSync('/etc/letsencrypt/live/yourdomain.com/privkey.pem', 'utf8');
const certificate = fs.readFileSync('/etc/letsencrypt/live/yourdomain.com/cert.pem', 'utf8');
const ca = fs.readFileSync('/etc/letsencrypt/live/yourdomain.com/chain.pem', 'utf8');

const server = https.createServer({ key: privateKey, cert: certificate, ca: ca }, app);
server.listen(443);

Congratulations, you have successfully issued your own SSL certificates for your website! If you found this guide helpful, or have any thoughts, let me know in the comments! Bye for now. 👋

How to accept Cash App payments on your Node.js web server without Cash App Pay!

Brian W. — Wed, 26 Jun 2024 00:35:20 +0000

Hello there! Welcome to this concise Node.js tutorial where I will guide you through integrating Cash App payments into your Node.js website without relying on Stripe, Cash App Pay, or any other payment processing platforms. The best part? No SSN or ID verification is required to handle the payments!

To begin accepting Cash App payments, start by launching Cash App on your device and locating the profile button in the top-right corner of the screen. Proceed by scrolling down until you spot the Notifications tab, and ensure that email notifications are enabled. This step holds significant importance since we will utilize the IMAP library to monitor email notifications that are sent by Cash App.

Now, let’s move on to the coding part. Create a new file and name it cashapp.js

Next, we’ll need to get our mail credentials. In this tutorial, I’ll be using Gmail since that’s the email I use for my Cash App account. If you have 2FA (two-factor authentication) enabled on your Google account, you will need to generate an app password to proceed. Now, let’s import the required libraries and open our inbox.

const Imap = require('imap'); //Include IMAP to check emails
const simpleParser = require('mailparser').simpleParser; //Include mail parser to parse email bodies

// IMAP configuration
const imapConfig = {
  user: process.env.email, //My email (make sure to replace it)
  password: process.env.password, //My password (make sure to replace it)
  host: 'imap.gmail.com', //The IMAP host (gmail)
  port: 993, //IMAP port
  tls: true, //Enable TLS
 tlsOptions: { rejectUnauthorized: false }, //Allow authentication without unauthorization via cert
};

const imap = new Imap(imapConfig); //Authenticate with our credentials

//Open up the inbox to prepare for reading the emails
function openInbox(cb) {
  imap.openBox('Inbox', true, cb);
}

After you include your email and password as an environment variable, it’s time to search through all the emails sent by Cash App (cash@square.com). In this tutorial, we will verify if the transaction sent by the user is the one we’re looking for by requiring our customers to enter a special code in the “For” field when making payments on Cash App.

We can replicate the following by adding this line of code to cashapp.js:

const verifyPayment = (cashTag, specialCode, amount) => {
  return new Promise((resolve, reject) => {
    imap.search([['FROM', 'cash@square.com'], ['SUBJECT', `sent you ${'$' + amount} for ${specialCode}`], ['TEXT', `Payment from ${cashTag}`]], (err, results) => {
      if (err) {
        reject(err);
        return;
      }
      if (results.length === 0) {
        resolve(false);
        return;
      }

      const latestEmail = results[0];
      const f = imap.fetch(latestEmail, { bodies: '' });
      f.on('message', (msg) => {
        msg.on('body', (stream, info) => {
          let buffer = '';

          stream.on('data', (chunk) => {
            buffer += chunk.toString('utf8');
          });

          stream.on('end', () => {
            simpleParser(buffer, (err, parsedEmail) => {
              if (err) {
                reject(err);
                return;
              }

              console.log(`[SUCCESS] A transaction from ${cashTag} has been found with the subject: ${parsedEmail.subject}`); //Remove this if you wouldn't like to log the result in the console
              resolve(true);
            });
          });
        });
      });
    });
  });
};

imap.once('ready', () => {
  openInbox((err, box) => {
    if (err) throw err;
  });
});

imap.connect();
module.exports = verifyPayment;

In the provided code, we are essentially searching for the most recent email from Cash App with the subject line “sent you $__ for ____.” Moreover, it verifies if the email contains the phrase “Payment from $CashTag” (where “CashTag” represents the customer’s actual Cash Tag). If the email is located and its body is parsed successfully, the code returns true. Conversely, if the email is not found, it returns false. Please note that there is an additional line in the code that logs the result if successful. However, feel free to remove it if desired.

Now that we‘ve completed the necessary steps, it’s time to incorporate the functionality into our existing code. We can utilize it in the following manner:

const verifyPayment = require('./cashapp.js');

const result = await verifyPayment('$Brian', 'abc123', 5); //Replace $Brian with the CashTag, abc123 with the secret code, and 5 with the amount that the user is paying
console.log(result);

IMPORTANT: Please be aware that the function may fail initially when executing the code since it takes approximately 3 seconds for IMAP to open the inbox.

In conclusion, this Node.js tutorial has provided a comprehensive guide on seamlessly integrating Cash App payments into your Node.js website without the need for external payment processing platforms like Stripe or Cash App Pay. The notable advantage is that you can handle payments without requiring SSN or ID verification. By following the steps outlined in this tutorial, you can easily incorporate Cash App payments into your Node.js website, offering a convenient and efficient payment solution for your users. Thanks for reading, and happy coding!