Setting up Amazon EC2 instance for PawJS

July 19, 2018

Yash Thakur

Yash Thakur

Prepare Amazon EC2 Instance

  • Log into your AWS account

    Log into the AWS Management Console.

  • Launch Amazon EC2 Instance

    In the Amazon EC2 Dashboard, choose "Launch Instance" to create and configure your virtual machine.

  • Configure the Instance

    In this wizard, you have the option to configure your instance features. Below are some guidelines on setting up your first instance.

    - Choose an Amazon Machine Image (AMI): In step 1 of the wizard, I recommend **Latest Ubuntu Server LTS**. - Choose an instance type: In step 2 of the wizard, I recommend **t2.micro** for testing. - Launch instance: In step 7, review your instance configuration and choose "Launch". - Create a key pair: Select "Create a new key pair" and assign a name. The key pair file (.pem) will download automatically - save this in a safe place as we will later use this file to log in to the instance. Finally, choose "Launch Instances" to complete the set up.

  • Connect to the Instance

    • In a command-line shell, change directories to the location of the private key file that you created when you launched the instance.
    • Use the following command to set the permissions of your private key file so that only you can read it. 
      $ chmod 400 /path/my-key-pair.pem
    • Use the ssh command to connect to the instance. You specify the private key (.pem) file and ubuntu@public_dns_name. 
      $ ssh -i /path/my-key-pair.pem [email protected]

A more detailed guide of Getting Started with Amazon EC2 can be found here.

Install NodeJS

To install NodeJS, you can follow the guide here. I recommend you to use Latest NodeJS version.

For Ubuntu, the steps are as follows:

  • Node.js is available from the NodeSource Debian and Ubuntu binary distributions repository 
    $ curl -sL https://deb.nodesource.com/setup_10.x | sudo -E bash -
$ sudo apt-get install -y nodejs
  • Optional: install build tools 
    $ sudo apt-get install -y build-essential

Install and Setup Nginx

You can install Nginx by following the guide here.

For Ubuntu, Nginx is available in Ubuntu's default repositories, so the installation is rather straight forward.

  • Update the Debian repository information:

    $ sudo apt-get update

  • Install the NGINX Open Source package:

    $ sudo apt-get install nginx

  • Verify the installation:

    $ sudo nginx -v

  • To redirect all request to Node app, open and edit Nginx configuration file.

    $ sudo nano /etc/nginx/sites-available/my-site.conf

    Add the following config to the file

    server {
    server_name mysite.com www.mysite.com;
#    location ~* \.(eot|otf|ttf|woff|woff2)$ {
         add_header Access-Control-Allow-Origin *;
#    }
    location / {
        proxy_set_header HOST $host;
        proxy_set_header X-Host $host;
        proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-Proto $scheme;
        proxy_set_header X-Real-IP $remote_addr;
        proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-For $proxy_add_x_forwarded_for;
        proxy_pass http://127.0.0.1:port_of_your_app;
        proxy_connect_timeout 600;
        proxy_send_timeout 600;
        proxy_read_timeout 600;
        send_timeout 600;
    }
}

    Save it by press CTRL+O then exit the Nano editor by press CTRL+X.

    Create a Symbolic Link of the file to sites-enabled:

    $ ln -s /etc/nginx/sites-available/my-site.conf /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/

    To test Nginx configuration, type this command.

    $ sudo nginx -t

    If the status is OK continue further.

  • To restart Nginx type this command.

    $ sudo service nginx restart

Install Process Manager

The most popular process managers for Express and other Node.js applications are as follows:

For more information, see Process managers for Express apps

  • PM2 is a tool for managing Node.js process. To install it, type this command. 
    $ sudo npm install -g pm2
  • Run the Node app using PM2 as follows: 
    $ cd /path/your-project && pm2 start server.js --name="my-site" -i 3 --watch
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