I recently secured my website on node.js to use https instead of just plain http. However, once I did this, I realized that I had to type out the :80 suffix if I wanted to get to my website to load. Why is this? Doesn't chrome default to port 80 and shouldn't https://localhost suffice?
const port = 80;
https.createServer({
key: fs.readFileSync('./private/ssl/server.key'),
cert: fs.readFileSync('./private/ssl/server.cert')
}, app)
.listen(port, function () {
console.log('Server running on port: ' + port);
});
app.get('/', (req, res) => {
res.sendFile('index.html', { root: path.join(__dirname, './') });
});
app.use(express.static('./public'));```
The default port for HTTPS is 443, not 80.
Be aware that HTTPS uses port 443 by default, and that's probably the source of your confusion.
If you specify both https and :80 in your browser's address bar, you are making an HTTPS request to port 80, which is unusual.
What kind of reply you will be getting depends on your server's configuration.
Related
I have two node servers on a single host. One HTTP server with the responsibility of redirecting to HTTPS, and one HTTPS server responsible for serving my application:
const express = require('express');
const https = require('https');
const http = require('http')
const fs = require('fs');
const app = express();
const httpsOptions = {
key: fs.readFileSync('./local-ssl/key.pem'),
cert: fs.readFileSync('./local-ssl/cert.pem'),
passphrase: '*****'
}
//other stuff
http.createServer(function (req, res) {
res.writeHead(301, { "Location": "https://" + req.headers['host'] + req.url });
res.end();
}).listen(80);
https.createServer(httpsOptions, app).listen(443)
This works great locally.
The issue is, when I deploy this code and run these servers on AWS EC2 you cannot start servers on ports 80 and 443. I am trying to figure out how I can get around this issue. If I run them on different ports, the servers will not respond, and worse, redirect incorrectly.
Example:
If I serve HTTP on 8081 and HTTPS on 8443, when a redirect occurs, the code redirects to
https://my-fun-url.com:8081
which of course does not work because I am not responding to HTTPS on port 8081.
Now, I've explored the option of port forwarding, but how would this work? If I forward ports 80 and 443 to internal ports (let's say) 3000 and 4000 the same redirection problem will occur.
I have scoured the internet for so long and to me this is a simple requirement for any web-app. I would very much appreciate some detailed guidance on my strategy.
If you want to keep ports 8081 and 8443, then you simply replace 8081 with 8443 in the host header:
httpsHost = req.headers.host.replace('8081', '8443');
res.writeHead(301, {
"Location": "https://" + httpsHost + req.url
});
Now, I've explored the option of port forwarding, but how would this work? If I forward ports 80 and 443 to internal ports (let's say) 3000 and 4000 the same redirection problem will occur.
Not exactly. When someone navigates to http://my-fun-url.com (80) the request is forwarded to 3000. Your http server will respond with a redirect to https://my-fun-url.com (443) which will be forwarded to 4000, and the https server will take it from there.
The difference between the two methods is that with ports 80 and 443 being the default, they are implied and therefore can be left out from the host part of the URL. Which makes the redirect easier as there's no port in the host to replace in the first place, just the protocol part (HTTP/HTTPS).
nodejs version v6.11.5
When hosting via Express, the website loads, i.e,
app.listen(port, function () {
console.log("The Server Has Started!");
});
But, when hosting via https, I get ERR_CONNECTION_REFUSED error. For hosting with https, I'm using
var options = {
ca: fs.readFileSync(__dirname+'/keys/sitname.ca-bundle'),
key: fs.readFileSync(__dirname + '/keys/sitname.key'),
cert: fs.readFileSync(__dirname + '/keys/sitname.crt'),
};
var app = express();
.... the app .....
https.createServer(options, app).listen(port, function(){
console.log("server started at port "+port);
});
The port is set to 80 and the ufw rules are as following
To Action From
-- ------ ----
22 LIMIT Anywhere
80 ALLOW Anywhere
443 ALLOW Anywhere
22 (v6) LIMIT Anywhere (v6)
80 (v6) ALLOW Anywhere (v6)
443 (v6) ALLOW Anywhere (v6)
Any response will be highly appreciable.
For https you have to set the port to 443 because https uses this port by default. Another option would that you define that you want to use port 80 for https when you send your request: my-domain.com:80. But I'm not sure if this works.
From #floriangosse's comment,
HTTPS uses port 443 by default and thus using port 80 for HTTPS gives ERR_CONNECTION_REFUSED.
Switching to port 443 worked.
Following example is taken from the github page of node-http-proxy
HTTPS -> HTTP
//
// Create the HTTPS proxy server in front of a HTTP server
//
httpProxy.createServer({
target: {
host: 'localhost',
port: 9009
},
ssl: {
key: fs.readFileSync('valid-ssl-key.pem', 'utf8'),
cert: fs.readFileSync('valid-ssl-cert.pem', 'utf8')
}
}).listen(8009);
Question: Why is httpProxy not listening to port 443 for secure SSL traffic?
SSL has default port which is 443 but like with regular HTTP protocol which also has default 80 port it could be bind to a custom port and accessed by specifying a port in the url(https://localhost:8009). Based on this answer.
I have a REST API built with node that communicates over SSL. The server is built uses express and makes use of vhosts and cors. I have recently added a listener on port 80 as well so I can force HTTPS. As I test, I tried to access http://manage.domain.com:443/ but the request just hangs. Neither listeners seem to accept it. All I want to do is redirect that request to https.
I assume you already know this, but you'll need an https server (duh) to serve the HTTPS content. It doesn't matter what port you run it on; 443 is just the default port for HTTPS. If you want HTTP requests to redirect to HTTPS, you'll need both an http and an https server. Here's an example of how your app file should look:
var http = require('http'),
https = require('https'),
express = require('express')
fs = require('fs');
var domain = 'localhost';
var app = express();
app.get('*', function(req, res){
// redirect to HTTPS
res.redirect('https://' + domain + req.path);
});
http.createServer(app).listen(80, function(){
console.log('HTTP listening on port 80');
});
var appSecure = express();
// configure your app here
var options = {
key: fs.readFileSync('ssl_key.pem'),
cert: fs.readFileSync('ssl_cert.crt'),
};
https.createServer(options, appSecure).listen(443, function(){
console.log('HTTPS listening on port 443');
});
Obviously, you will need your SSL key and certificate to make this work.
As you probably know, most systems require elevated privileges to open a port less than 1025; so if you use port 80 and port 443, you'll have to run the app server with elevated privileges (if you're running on OSX/Linux/BSD, just do sudo node app.js).
Okay. I have an app on express which also uses Socket.io and works fine via HTTP. However, now I have to move to HTTPS. Nodejitsu provide a lot of documentation on this. They suggest to use node-http-proxy (https://github.com/nodejitsu/node-http-proxy). Fine!
From the code for HTTP:
var server = http.createServer(app) // app is an Express instance
server.listen(config.port,config.hostip) // config.port is 80 for localhost and 3000 for Nodejitsu, config.hostip is 127.0.0.1 for localhost and 0.0.0.0 for Nodejitsu
I got this:
var server = http.createServer(app)
var options = {
https: {
key: fs.readFileSync(__dirname+"/ssl/privatekey.pem", 'utf8'),
cert: fs.readFileSync(__dirname+"/ssl/certificate.pem", 'utf8')
}
}
httpProxy.createServer(config.port, config.hostip, options).listen(3001,config.hostip)
var proxy = new httpProxy.HttpProxy({
target: {
host: config.hostip,
port: config.port
}
})
https.createServer(options.https, function (req, res) {
proxy.proxyRequest(req, res)
}).listen(3002,config.hostip)
server.listen(config.port,config.hostip)
When I finally deploy (no errors during deployment), I visit the page and see 502 error Socket hang up. OK, I might doing something wrong, so I just copy and paste the example from https://github.com/nodejitsu/node-http-proxy "Proxying to HTTP from HTTPS" to check if it works. But it doesn't - 502 error.
It works fine on my localhost though. I have also tried to launch standalone HTTPS server without node-https-proxy, but no luck. Please help, I cannot solve this for weeks.
Found by myself. Nodejitsu offers SSL by default, just visit your site via HTTPS://. For custom domains to apply SSL certs you need to subscribe for Business Plan.