Forcing express server as default port AWS - node.js

I am hosting my site on an AWS ec2 instance. I want to run a Node.JS server on port 8080 (or something similar), and I want all users going to example.com, to be sent to example.com:8080. For some reason, rewriting example.com -> example.com:8080 doesn't work because AWS doesn't allow accessing example.com:someport.
How can I force all users towards example.com:8080 without using plain Redirect? (I may be completely wrong and just doing things improperly)

Try this
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{SERVER_PORT} !^8080$
RewriteRule ^/(.*) http://www.example.com:8080/$1

Do you have to use raw EC2? That is probably unnecessarily low level. Can you instead use Up or ElasticBeanstalk? Either one should make this easier.
Also, why does it need to be on port 8080? My guess would be, because when you develop locally, you use that port (because one doesn't develop locally using port 80). Why not have an ENV var where you set const port = process.env.PORT || 80, then invoke node with PORT=8080 node server.js when developing locally.
Of course, node crashes. A lot. It's kind of its thing. So, you don't want to ever run the command node filename.js on an ec2 instance... you want to use forever or pm2. And, you really want a reverse proxy (Nginx) sending traffic to your node instance... which is why I say use Up or Beanstalk. But if you must do it yourself, this walkthrough covers the bases.

Related

How to execute OpenTest thru Apache reverse proxy along with other applications

First some context
We have an Ubuntu Server 18.04 LTS server running on Azure
Our company security policies only allows for ports 80 and 443 to be accessed thru HTTP/HTTPS
Any applications such as Jenkins or NodeJS ones running on other ports should use a reverse proxy thru Apache
The same server already has Jenkins running on port 8080 and Jenkins itself can be configured to run using what they call a "--path" parameter which makes it accessible thru URL http://localhost:8080/jenkins, hence reverse proxy is pretty straight forward to configure as anything going to "/jenkins" can just be pass to http://localhost:8080/jenkins, current Apache config (which is working for Jenkins) as follows:
# Jenkins
ProxyPass /jenkins http://localhost:8080/jenkins nocanon
ProxyPassReverse /jenkins http://localhost:8080/jenkins
ProxyRequests Off
AllowEncodedSlashes NoDecode
<Proxy http://localhost:8080/jenkins*>
Order deny,allow
Allow from all
</Proxy>
The problem we are facing
So, for running OpenTest, we have to install it as a npm package which can then be executed by running opentest server command, it will start the application on port 3000 by default http://localhost:3000 but it is possible to change the preferred port as well thru configuration https://getopentest.org/reference/configuration.html#server-configuration
The problem is that we need to re-route anything, let's say going to "/opentest" to the opentest server app but that doesn't work for all static assets, api urls, etc... since the app is just running on port 3000 http://localhost:3000 but doesn't seems to have something like the Jenkins' "--path", so we can't just mimic the same reverse proxy we have for Jenkins; the idea would be to have opentest in path "/opentest", something like http://localhost:3000/opentest.
We were not able to find any OpenTest configuration that allows me to do something like http://localhost:3000/opentest and we are new to pm2 so we can't tell if it is possible to use pm2 to to run the OpenTest application in a "path" or some sort of "local known application domain" which we could use to re-route the reverse proxy to.
Any thoughts, ideas, workarounds or solutions are welcome; we might be taking the wrong approach here so we would also appreciate any insights in that regard.
Thanks!
Starting with version 1.2.0, you can use the urlPrefix configuration parameter in server.yaml to accomplish this:
#...
urlPrefix: /opentest

Run nodejs app through HTTPS

I have a node app that is setup on SSH by running node osjs run --hostname=dc-619670cb94e6.vtxfactory.org --port=4100.
It starts at http://dc-619670cb94e6.vtxfactory.org:4100/ without problems, but instead I want to serve it through HTTPS https://dc-619670cb94e6.vtxfactory.org:4100/ , where I receive an error ERR_CONNECTION_CLOSED.
If I use the port I'm unable to reach it with https, but https://dc-619670cb94e6.vtxfactory.org/ is accessible.
How can I serve the port 4100 through htttps?
Thanks.
This is an implementation detail of OS.js. Their docs recommend setting up a reverse proxy for servers. Doing this will give you more control over SSL and ports, like you want
https://manual.os-js.org/installation/

Run node.js on cpanel hosting server

It is a simple node.js code.
var http = require('http');
http.createServer(function(req, res) {
res.writeHead(200, { 'Content-Type' : 'text/plain'});
res.end('Hello World!');
}).listen(8080);
I uploaded it on cpanel hosting server and installed node.js and run it.
If a server is normal server I can check script result by accessing 'http://{serverip}:8080'. But on cpanel is hosting domain and sub domain and every domain is matched by every sites. Even http://{serverip} is not valid url.
How can I access my node.js result?
Kindly teach me.
Thanks.
bingbing.
Install/Setup NodeJS with CPanel
1. Log in to your account using SSH (if it is not enabled for your account, contact the support team).
2. Download Node.js
wget https://nodejs.org/dist/latest/node-v10.0.0-linux-arm64.tar.xz
3. Extract the Node.js files
tar xvf node-v10.0.0-linux-arm64.tar.xz
4.Now rename the folder to "nodejs". To do this, type the following command
mv node-v10.0.0-linux nodejs
5. Now to install the node and npm binaries, type the following commands:
mkdir ~/bin <br> cp nodejs/bin/node ~/bin
cd ~/bin
ln -s
../nodejs/lib/node_modules/npm/bin/npm-cli.js npm
6. Node.js and npm are installed on your account. To verify this, type the following commands
node --version
npm --version
The ~/bin directory is in your path by default, which means you can run node and npm from any directory in your account.
7. Start Node.js Application
nohup node my_app.js &
8. Stop the Application
pkill node
9. Integrating a Node.js application with the web server(optional)
Depending on the type of Node.js application you are running, you may want to be able to access it using a web browser. To do this, you need to select an unused port for the Node.js application to listen on, and then define server rewrite rules that redirect visitors to the application.
In a text editor, add the following lines to the .htaccess file in the/home/username/public_html directory, where username represents your account username:
RewriteEngine On
RewriteRule ^$ http://127.0.0.1:XXXXX/ [P,L]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://127.0.0.1:XXXXX/$1 [P,L]
In both RewriteRule lines, replace XXXXX with the port on which your Node.js application listens.
To run a Node.js application on a managed server, you must select an unused port, and the port number must be between 49152 and 65535(inclusive).
Save the changes to the .htaccess file, and then exit the text editor. Visitors to your website are redirected to the Node.js application listening on the specified port.
If your application fails to start, the port you chose may already be in use. Check the application log for error codes like EADDRINUSE that indicate the port is in use. If it is, select a different port number, update your application’s configuration and the .htaccess file, and then try again.
cPanel typically runs Apache or another web server that is shared among all the cPanel/unix accounts. The web server listens on port 80. Depending on the domain name in the requested URL, the web server uses "Virtual Hosting" to figure out which cPanel/unix account should process the request, i.e. in which home directory to find the files to serve and scripts to run. If the URL only contains an IP address, cPanel has to default to one of cPanel accounts.
Ordinarily, without root access, a job run by a cPanel account cannot listen on port 80. Indeed, the available ports might be quite restrictive. If 8080 doesn't work, you might try 60000. To access a running node.js server, you'll need to have the port number it's listening on. Since that is the only job listening on that port on that server, you should be able to point your browser to the domain name of any of the cPanel accounts or even the IP address of the server, adding the port number to the URL. But, it's typical to use the domain name for the cPanel account running the node.js job, e.g. http://cPanelDomainName.com:60000/ .
Of course port 80 is the default for web services, and relatively few users are familiar with optional port numbers in URLs. To make things easier for users, you can use Apache to "reverse proxy" requests on port 80 to the port that the node.js process is listening on. This can be done using Apache's RewriteRule directive in a configuration or .htaccess file. This reverse proxying of requests arguably has other benefits as well, e.g. Apache may be a more secure, reliable and manageable front-end for facing the public Internet.
Unfortunately, this setup for node.js is not endorsed by all web hosting companies. One hosting company that supports it, even on its inexpensive shared hosting offerings, is A2Hosting.com. They also have a clearly written description of the setup process in their Knowledge Base.
Finally, it's worth noting that the developers of cPanel are working on built-in node.js support. "If all of the stars align we might see this land as soon as version 68," i.e. perhaps early 2018.
References
Apache Virtual Hosting -
http://httpd.apache.org/docs/2.4/vhosts/
Apache RewriteRule Directive - http://httpd.apache.org/docs/2.4/mod/mod_rewrite.html
A2Hosting.com Knowledge Base Article on Configuring Node.js - https://www.a2hosting.com/kb/installable-applications/manual-installations/installing-node-js-on-managed-hosting-accounts
cPanel Feature Request Thread for node.js Support - https://features.cpanel.net/topic/nodejs-hosting
Related StackOverflow Questions
How to host a Node.Js application in shared hosting
Why node.js can't run on shared hosting?
Yes it's possible, but it has few dependencies which may or may not be supported by either your cpanel hosting provider or the plan you opt in for.
Below steps that I'm mentioning is just for a demo purpose. If you are a student or just want to play with it you can try it out. I'm not a security expert so from security point of view how good it is I really don't know.
So with that being said let's see how I configured it. I have hostinger cpanel hosting subscription and following are the steps:
Enable SSH ACCESS
Connect to shared machine via ssh
Check your linux distro and download & setup node js
In my case following are the commands for that:
Downloading node & extracting it using curl
curl https://nodejs.org/dist/v12.18.3/node-v12.18.3-linux-x64.tar.gz |tar xz
This will download & extract node & create a directory. You can confirm that using ls command as shown in the image below.
At this point you can check the versions as shown below
as you can see for the node command it's okay but for the npm command we have modify it as follows
./node-v12.18.3-linux-x64/bin/node ./node-v12.18.3-linux-x64/lib/node_modules/npm/bin/npm-cli.js --version
Further we can create alias to make life little easier
check the below images for that:
I tried using bashrc/bash_profile but somehow it didn't work .
And that's all node server running on a shared cpanel machine.
Now I wanted to have an express js based rest api support in this case. The problem with that is it will be locally hosted on the port I'll give. Check the below example:
var express=require('express')
var app=express()
app.get('/', function (req, res) {
res.send('hosting node js base express api using php & shared hosting a great way to start yjtools')
})
console.log("listening yjtools node server on port 49876...")
app.listen(49876)
The problem here is even though it will execute I'll not be able to access it over the network. This is because we only get fixed predefined ports (like 80,21,3306 etc.) which are allowed/open on the shared cpanel machine. Due to this the express app I hosted will only available locally on 49876 port.
Let's see what do we have:
An express js based app hosted locally on cpanel machine.
Php based hosted Apache server available over http/https.
So we can make use of php with redirect rule set and curl to bridge the gap.
Following are the changes I did to make it work:
In .htaccess file add a redirect rule, say domain/api is what I want my rest api path to be.
RewriteRule api/(.*)$ api/api.php?request=$1 [QSA,NC,L]
In the api/api.php file (this is the path I choose you can choose any path)
<?php
echo "Hello ".$_REQUEST['username'];
echo '<hr>';
$curl = curl_init('http://127.0.0.1:49976/');
curl_setopt($curl, CURLOPT_HEADER, 1);
curl_setopt($curl, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, 1);
//Get the full response
$resp = curl_exec($curl);
if($resp === false) {
//If couldn't connect, try increasing usleep
echo 'Error: ' . curl_error($curl);
} else {
//Split response headers and body
list($head, $body) = explode("\r\n\r\n", $resp, 2);
$headarr = explode("\n", $head);
//Print headers
foreach($headarr as $headval) {
header($headval);
}
//Print body
echo $body;
}
//Close connection
curl_close($curl);
?>
And on the ssh prompt just run the app.js file
node api/app.js
Below are the images for this working in action:
Here is the similar thing which I referred for my program, so we can also make this node call via php itself.
Now I have express based rest api support , angular app hosted and mysql for database everything on cpanel.
You can use any domain pointed to that cPanel server and instead of accessing http://server-ip:8080 try accessing http://domain.tld:8080. By default cPanel does not bind on port 8080. Be sure to check if there is any firewall on the server. If it is, then allow incoming connections on tcp port 8080. Depending on your WHM server configuration, it should also work with http://server-ip:8080
cPanel Version 80 has nodejs 10.x support: https://documentation.cpanel.net/display/80Docs/80+Release+Notes#id-80ReleaseNotes-InstallanduseNode.jsapplications
Install and use Node.js applications
You can now install and use Node.js applications on your server. To
use Node.js, install the ea-nodejs10 module in the Additional Packages
section of WHM's EasyApache 4 interface (WHM >> Home >> Software >>
EasyApache 4).
You can register Node.js applications in cPanel's Application Manager
interface (cPanel >> Home >> Software >> Application Manager). For
more information, read our Guide to Node.js Installations
documentation.
For Application Manager to be enabled: https://documentation.cpanel.net/display/80Docs/Application+Manager
Your hosting provider must enable the Application Manager feature in
WHM's Feature Manager interface (WHM >> Home >> Packages >> Feature
Manager).
Your hosting provider must install the following Apache modules:
The ea-ruby24-mod_passengermodule. Note: This module disables Apache's
mod_userdir module.
The ea-apache24-mod_env module. Note: This module allows you to add
environment variables when you register your application. For more
information about environment variables, read the Environment
Variables section below.
The ea-nodejs10 module if you want to register a Node.js™ application.
You can see how application manager looks like in this Youtube video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ATxMYzLbRco
anyone who wants to know how to deploy node js app to Cpanel this is a good source for him, this explains thoroughly how to deploy node js app to Cpanel please check this

How to run express app on port 80 without sudo access

I am using the express framework for nodejs on a Dreamhost VPS and I want to run my server on port 80 but all of the answers I've seen require sudo/root access but on a Dreamhost VPS I am not given this permission. I can't edit any of the Apache files. The only thing I am able to do is create a .htaccess file. How can I achieve this?
You can try to run Node on a different port (greater than 1024, since those of 1023 or lower require root) and just proxy the requests through Apache by adding something like this to your .htaccess file:
RewriteEngine On
RewriteRule ^/(.*)$ http://127.0.0.1:8080/$1 [P,L]
(In this example Node would be running on port 8080).
For anyone who comes across this and has Dreamhost, the solution I came up with was creating a proxy. In the Dreamhost panel there is an option to create a proxy for a domain that you can then direct to go to any port for that domain and I simply made the proxy go to port 3000 and then my node server ran on port 3000.
#Frxstrem's answer also works but it failed to work when I shared a link and is kind of a hacky solution.

start Express in AWS EC2 without root is not reachable

I have deployed an Express application into EC2 instance but there is a weird problem. After SSH into the instance, If I start the server by
node server.js
it is not available through the browser;
If I start the server by
sudo node server.js
everything is ok.
Not suer why.
Ports less than 1024 are reserved for root, and thus require root permission.
My guess is that you are attempting to bind to ports 80/443, the default web ports. As such, this requires root permissions.
However, it is a bad idea to run your application as root, and so an alternative solution should be implemented.
sudo permission is required on low number port. you should use a proxy in front of your app; like nginx so that you can use low number port by redirect to your app's port.

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