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Linux

Set Up a Node.js Application for Production on Ubuntu 14.04

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How To Set Up a Node.js Application for Production on Ubuntu 14.04

Introduction

Node.js is an open source Javascript runtime environment for easily building server-side and networking applications. The platform runs on Linux, OS X, FreeBSD, and Windows, and its applications are written in JavaScript. Node.js applications can be run at the command line but we will teach you how to run them as a service, so they will automatically restart on reboot or failure, so you can use them in a production environment.

In this tutorial, we will cover setting up a production-ready Node.js environment that is composed of two Ubuntu 14.04 servers; one server will run Node.js applications managed by PM2, while the other will provide users with access to the application through an Nginx reverse proxy to the application server.

The CentOS version of this tutorial can be found here.

Prerequisites

This guide uses two Ubuntu 14.04 servers with private networking (in the same datacenter). We will refer to them by the following names:

  • app: The server where we will install Node.js runtime, your Node.js application, and PM2
  • web: The server where we will install the Nginx web server, which will act as a reverse proxy to your application. Users will access this server’s public IP address to get to your Node.js application.

It is possible to use a single server for this tutorial, but you will have to make a few changes along the way. Simply use the localhost IP address, i.e. 127.0.0.1, wherever the app server’s private IP address is used.

Here is a diagram of what your setup will be after following this tutorial:

Reverse Proxy to Node.js Application

Before you begin this guide, you should have a regular, non-root user with sudo privileges configured on both of your servers–this is the user that you should log in to your servers as. You can learn how to configure a regular user account by following steps 1-4 in our initial server setup guide for Ubuntu 14.04.

If you want to be able to access your web server via a domain name, instead of its public IP address, purchase a domain name then follow these tutorials: Continue reading Set Up a Node.js Application for Production on Ubuntu 14.04 →

Linux

Redirect www to Non-www with Nginx on Ubuntu 14.04

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Introduction

When you have your web site or application up and running behind a domain, it is often desirable to also allow your users access to it via the plain domain name and the www subdomain. That is, they should be able to visit your domain with or without the “www.” prefix, e.g. example.com or www.example.com, in a web browser, and be presented with the same content. While there are a variety of ways to set this up, the best solution, for consistency and SEO considerations, is to choose which domain you prefer, plain or www, and redirect the other one to the preferred domain. This type of redirect is called a Permanent Redirect, or “301 redirect”, and can be easily set up by properly configuring your DNS resource records and web server software.

This tutorial will show you how to redirect a www URL to non-www, e.g. www.example.com to example.com, with Nginx on Ubuntu 14.04. We will also show you how to redirect in the other direction, from a non-www URL to www. The CentOS 7 version of this tutorial is available here.

If you want to perform this type of redirect with Apache as your web server, you should follow this tutorial instead: How to Redirect www to non-www with Apache on Ubuntu 14.04.

Prerequisites

This tutorial assumes that you have superuser privileges, i.e. sudo or root, on the server that is running Nginx. If you don’t already have that set up, follow this tutorial: Initial Server Setup on Ubuntu 14.04.

It is assumed that you have Nginx installed. If you do not already have this set up, there are several tutorials on the subject under the Nginx tag.

You must be able to add records to the DNS that is managing your domain. If you do not already have a domain, you may purchase one from a domain registrar, and manage it with the registrar’s DNS or DigitalOcean’s DNS. In this tutorial, we will use the DigitalOcean DNS to create the necessary records.

Let’s get started by configuring your DNS records.

Configure DNS Records

In order to set up the desired redirect, www.example.com to example.com or vice versa, you must have an A record for each name.

Open whatever you use to manage your DNS. For our example, we’ll use the DigitalOcean DNS.

If a domain (also known as a zone) record does not already exist, create one now. The hostname should be your domain, e.g. example.com, and the IP address should be set to the public IP address of your Nginx server. This will automatically create an A record that points your domain to the IP address that you specified. If you are using another system to manage your domain, you may need to add this manually.

Next, add another A record with “www” as the hostname (or “www.example.com” if the partial subdomain doesn’t work), and specify the same IP address.

When you have created both records, it should look something like this:

Required A records

Note: This will also work with CNAME records, as long as the canonical name’s A record refers to the IP address of your Nginx web server.

Now your server should be accessible via the www and non-www domain, but we still need to set up the redirect. We’ll do that now. Continue reading Redirect www to Non-www with Nginx on Ubuntu 14.04 →