1. Preparing the server

Install git

sudo apt install git-all

Generate Server's SSH public key

ssh-keygen -t rsa -b 4096 -C "deploy"
cat ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub

Then add this to Deploy keys on Github repo

Add your local SSH public key to server

Insert your local SSH public key to .ssh/authorized_keys on server. If server don't has this file, let create one :

cd
mkdir ~/.ssh
touch ~/.ssh/authorized_keys
chmod 700 ~/.ssh
chmod 600 ~/.ssh/authorized_keys

Install Nodejs and pm2

In local machine and server install nodejs and pm2

Install Nodejs

sudo apt-get install nodejs npm

Install pm2

sudo npm install pm2 -g

CLI autocompletion

pm2 completion install

About pm2, follow the instructions here

1. Deploy project(local machine)

Config Ecosystem file

Generate an ecosystem.config.js template with:

pm2 init

module.exports = {
  apps : [{
    // Name of app
    name: 'API',
    // Script for pm2 run forever
    // If use static website, remove it
    script: 'app.js',

    // Options reference: https://pm2.io/doc/en/runtime/reference/ecosystem-file/

    // Args for script for pm2 run forever
    // If use static website, remove it
    args: 'one two',
    // Current directory on server
    cwd: "/var/www/production/current",
    // Config out file for web errors
    error_file: "/var/www/production/logs/web.err.log",
    // Config out file for web logs
    out_file: "/var/www/production/logs/web.out.log",
    // Number of instances to be started in cluster mode
    instances: 1,
    // Enable or disable auto restart after process failure
    autorestart: true,
    // Enable or disable the watch mode
    watch: false,
    // Restart the app if an amount of memory is exceeded (format: /0-9?/ K for KB, ‘M’ for MB, ‘G’ for GB, default to B)
    max_memory_restart: '1G',
    env: {
      NODE_ENV: 'development'
    },
    // ^env_\S*$ => Specify environment variables to be injected when using –env
    env_production: {
      NODE_ENV: 'production'
    }
  }],

  deploy : {
    production : {
      // SSH user
      user : 'node',
      // SSH host
      host : '212.83.163.175',
      // GIT remote/branch
      ref  : 'origin/master',
      // GIT remote
      repo : '[email protected]:repo.git',
      // Fetch all branches or fast
      fetch: 'all'
      // Path in the server
      path : '/var/www/production',
      // Command run after pull source code
      'post-deploy' : 'npm install && pm2 reload ecosystem.config.js --env production'
    }
  }
};

Edit ecosystem.config.js for your project.

You can reference my config files

For Vue static app with multiple environments on this link
OR for nuxt app on this link

Setup and Deploy

Setup

Make your first deploy and populate the distant path with:

pm2 deploy production setup

Deploy

pm2 deploy production

Config Nginx on server

Install NGINX

sudo apt update
sudo apt install nginx

Then you will need to add some configurations for our app. Create a config file at /etc/nginx/conf.d/azui_front_end.conf:

server {
  listen 80;
  server_name 212.83.163.175;
  root /var/www/production/current/dist;
        access_log      /var/www/production/logs/nginx_access.log;
        error_log       /var/www/production/logs/nginx_error.log;

  try_files $uri $uri/ /index.html;
}

"/var/www/production/current" is your cwd in above ecosystem config This is simple config for nginx.

You can reference my config for Vue static app or Nuxt on this link.

Restart Nginx

sudo service nginx restart

Create symbolic link (optional)

You can create symbolic link for cwd Take a look at the nginx config above, the doc root points to /var/www/production/current/dist, if you wanna shortcut this to /home/deploy/www directory, you need to create a symbolic link from the build directory to /home/deploy/www. The build will be placed at /var/www/production/current/dist, so run the command below to create a symbolic link

ln -s /var/www/production/current/dist /home/deploy/www

and replace /home/deploy/www to root key in nginx config file

Nice to see someone actually post a good deployment example for pm2 as the documentation is seriously lacking.

A question about pm2 deployments: I do not want to keep an ecosystem.config.js in my repository with filled in environment variables for security reasons.

However, with my pm2 deployment (similar to yours). I have the issue that the deployment tries to load an ecosystem.config.js in the "cwd" of the app (e.g. cwd: "/var/www/production/current",). This folder is different to the folder where my ecosystem.config.js is from where I am running the pm2 deploy command. What is the point of having an ecosystem.config.js with filled in environment variables, that deploys the app in a different folder (path : '/var/www/production',) if it's not going to provide those environment variables automatically in the /var/www/production folder but instead expects an ecosystem.config.js to be there too with environment variables?

Let me know if it's not clear my question.

hoangmirs/deploy-pm2.md