EC2 - ExpressJS Server Setup with Custom Domain

(PRE) Create a free tier ec2 Ubuntu machine

SSH into the server instance
Run as super user: sudo su
Run: apt-get update

(1) NPM and Nodejs installation: https://docs.aws.amazon.com/sdk-for-javascript/v2/developer-guide/setting-up-node-on-ec2-instance.html

(2) Setting up the server

It is conventional to place the code in /var/www/APP_NAME, so mkdir -p /var/www/APP_NAME
Go into the dir cd /var/www/APP_NAME and clone the server repo git clone /var/www/APP_NAME

(3) Installing Nginx

Install nginx: apt-get install nginx
To verify if nginx is running, open the Public IPv4 address of your EC2 server
Go to /etc/nginx/sites-available
Run nano default and delete everything and paste the following
Let us first run it without SSL, paste the following

server {
  listen       80;
  server_name  _;

  location / {
    proxy_pass http://EC2_Private_IPv4:APP_PORT;
    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;
  }
}

Run systemctl restart nginx
Go to your Domain DNS Settings and create a CNAME with sub-domain with the value to be EC2 Public IPv4 DNS (ec2-2-3...)
Go to your /var/www/YOUR_APP, and run your server npm i and npm start

(4) Set up SSL certificate

Install snapd package manager: apt-get install snapd
Install certbot: snap install --classic certbot
sudo ln -s /snap/bin/certbot /usr/bin/certbot
Run the following to generate the certs: certbot -d SUB_DOMAIN.DOMAIN.com and go through the questions
Reconfigure NGINX to setup the certificates
Go to /etc/nginx/sites-available
Run nano default and delete everything and paste the following

server {
        listen 80;
        server_name SUB_DOMAIN.YOUR_APP.com;
        return 301 https://$host$request_uri;
}

server {
        listen 443 ssl;

        server_name SUB_DOMAIN.YOUR_APP.com;
        ssl_certificate /etc/letsencrypt/live/SUB_DOMAIN.YOUR_APP.com/fullchain.pem; # managed by Certbot
        ssl_certificate_key /etc/letsencrypt/live/SUB_DOMAIN.YOUR_APP.com/privkey.pem; # managed by Certbot

        ssl_protocols TLSv1 TLSv1.1 TLSv1.2;
        ssl_prefer_server_ciphers on;
        ssl_ciphers 'EECDH+AESGCM:EDH+AESGCM:AES256+EECDH:AES256+EDH';

location / {
        proxy_pass http://EC2_Private_IPv4:APP_PORT;
        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;
    }
}

Run systemctl restart nginx
Go to your /var/www/YOUR_APP, and run your server npm start
Open the domain you configured and it should be running the server

(5) Setting up PM2 (Ref: https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tutorials/how-to-set-up-a-node-js-application-for-production-on-ubuntu-20-04)

Install build essentials: apt install build-essential
Install pm2: npm install pm2@latest -g
Start the server: pm2 start server.js

dPacc/ec2-express.md

dPacc commented Mar 17, 2024