Your app works locally. Now let’s put it online.

Install Nginx

Nginx sits in front of your app and handles web traffic.

sudo apt install nginx -y
sudo systemctl enable nginx

Set Up Firewall

Only open what you need:

sudo ufw allow OpenSSH
sudo ufw allow 'Nginx Full'
sudo ufw enable

Get Free SSL

For that lock icon in browsers:

sudo apt install certbot python3-certbot-nginx -y
sudo certbot --nginx -d yoursite.com

It renews itself. Nice.

Connect Nginx to Your App

Create /etc/nginx/sites-available/myapp:

server {
    listen 443 ssl;
    server_name yoursite.com;

    location / {
        proxy_pass http://localhost:3000;
        proxy_set_header Host $host;
    }
}

Enable it:

sudo ln -s /etc/nginx/sites-available/myapp /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/
sudo nginx -t
sudo systemctl reload nginx

Keep Your App Running Forever

Without this, your app dies when server restarts.

Create /etc/systemd/system/myapp.service:

[Unit]
Description=My App
After=network.target

[Service]
User=www-data
WorkingDirectory=/var/www/myapp
ExecStart=/usr/bin/node server.js
Restart=on-failure

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

Start it:

sudo systemctl enable myapp
sudo systemctl start myapp

When Things Break

sudo systemctl status myapp
sudo journalctl -u myapp -n 30

Done

Nginx handles traffic, systemd keeps app alive, firewall blocks bad stuff, SSL keeps it safe. That’s it.