Static Website and Node server on same ec2 Instance - node.js

Question

Can I serve my static website content and run a node server on the same ec2 Instance .
My ec2 instance is a t2.micro ubuntu 14.04 Image.
Tasks done :
Nodejs,npm installed. Nginx installed configured. Set up the ../../www/ directory to serve content through nginx.
I have a domain xyz.com pointed its # value to the elastic IP associated with the instance.
uploaded website files to directory . So now if I access xyz.com I get my website content through the nginx .
Cool.
But the node app is not accessible.
My node app is running on the port 3000.
tried adding
server {
root /var/www;
index: example.js
server_name _;
location / {
proxy_pass http://127.0.0.1:3000;
expires 30d; # not required
access_log off;
}
}
/etc/nginx/sites-available to point to the node server .
Cool . now xyz.com runs my node app . But no website content is accessible now :
(
And if I try hitting any API whose routes are defined in my Express routes there are no logs on the server side . only an nginx 404 error
eg:
xyz.com/myroute -404 nginx error, works on localhost:3000/myroute
xyz.com/ - returns the default route set for /
xyz.com:3000 - doesnot hit the node server. no logs.
Many online resources suggest rerouting the port 80 in the security zone to serve content over the port on which node is running. I could run the node app this way but again the whole website would have to be served through node.
I want to run them separately .
xyz.com - serves me the website
xyz.com:3000 - allows me to hit my node server Should I separate the app and website on to two different instances ? How can they be routed??

Answer 1

Hi I am running a similar setup but with a Jetty server instead of Node.
Below is my config;
server {
listen 80;
root /var/www/html/;
index index.php index.html index.htm;
server_name my_domain;
location / {
try_files $uri $uri/ /index.php?$query_string;
}
location ~ \.php$ {
try_files $uri /index.php =404;
fastcgi_split_path_info ^(.+\.php)(/.+)$;
fastcgi_pass unix:/var/run/php5-fpm.sock;
fastcgi_index index.php;
fastcgi_param SCRIPT_FILENAME $document_root$fastcgi_script_name ;
include fastcgi_params;
}
location /app {
proxy_pass http://localhost:8080;
proxy_set_header X-Real-IP $remote_addr;
proxy_set_header X-Forwarded_For $proxy_add_x_forwarded_for;
proxy_set_header Host $http_host;
}
}
As I understand it, you should only have to change the location /app to whatever your app path is, and obviously point the proxy_pass at the right port.
The other way of going about it will be to proxy pass on subdomain and have 2 virtual servers in nginx, so for example app.mydomain.com and app2.mydomain.com. For that kind of setup have a look at; nginx reverse proxy multiple backends
I believe you are looking for the kind of setup I have above. Good luck.