Deploy a Node.js App on AWS Lightsail

Step - 1: Install Node.js

Install nodejs on your ubuntu vps using the following command:

curl -fsSL https://deb.nodesource.com/setup_16.x | sudo -E bash -
sudo apt-get install -y nodejs

Step - 2: Install nginx

Install nginx on your ubuntu vps using the following command:

sudo apt-get install nginx

Step - 3: Install pm2

pm2 is a process manager for nodejs. Install pm2 using the following command:

sudo npm install pm2 -g

using pm2 we can run our nodejs application in the background.

To start pm2 on server startup, we need to run the following command:

pm2 startup systemd

Follow the output of the above command to configure pm2 to start on server startup.

Clone your project repository

I will be using the node-simple-signin-signup repository.

clone the repository using the following command:

git clone https://github.com/Nikhil1920/node-simple-signin-signup

After cloning the repository cd into the directory and run the npm install command to install all the dependencies

start the node server using the following command:

pm2 start app.js

Configure nginx to serve the node server

Let’s configure nginx to serve the node server.

sudo nano /etc/nginx/sites-available/default

within the server block, there will be a location block. find the location block and replace it with the following content:

location / {
        proxy_pass http://localhost:3000;
        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;
    }
}

After editing the nginx config restart your nginx server using the following command

service nginx restart

your node app will now be available on your server public address

Some useful pm2 commands

To see the list of all the running processes, run the following command:

pm2 list

To stop an application, run the following command:

pm2 stop <app_name_or_id>

To restart an application, run the following command:

pm2 restart <app_name_or_id>

To see the logs of a process, run the following command:

pm2 logs <process_name>

# Display all apps logs in realtime
pm2 logs