cannot run node.js webservice on port 80 or 443 - linux

Question

I have a VPS running CENTOS and I'm experimenting with Node.js.
I ran an example node.js server running correctly on various ports, but whenever I tried to run node on port 80 (same error for 443) I get the following error:
root#mic [~/Projects/NodeTutorial2]# node index.js
Server running on port 80.
events.js:72
throw er; // Unhandled 'error' event
^
Error: listen EADDRINUSE
at errnoException (net.js:883:11)
at Server._listen2 (net.js:1021:14)
at listen (net.js:1043:10)
at Server.listen (net.js:1109:5)
at Object.<anonymous> (/root/Projects/NodeTutorial2/index.js:8:4)
at Module._compile (module.js:456:26)
at Object.Module._extensions..js (module.js:474:10)
at Module.load (module.js:356:32)
at Function.Module._load (module.js:312:12)
at Function.Module.runMain (module.js:497:10)
I've tried to redirect port 80 to 3000 by doing:
sudo iptables -t nat -A PREROUTING -i eth0 -p tcp --dport 80 -j REDIRECT --to-port 3000
Apparently I executed this command twice because:
when I did a: sudo iptables -t nat -L, it returned:
root#mic [~]# sudo iptables -t nat -L
Chain PREROUTING (policy ACCEPT)
target prot opt source destination
REDIRECT tcp -- anywhere anywhere tcp dpt:http redir ports 3000
REDIRECT tcp -- anywhere anywhere tcp dpt:http redir ports 3000
Chain POSTROUTING (policy ACCEPT)
target prot opt source destination
Chain OUTPUT (policy ACCEPT)
target prot opt source destination
but to no avail, I still get the same error.
I tried to see what is running on port 80 with the netstat -tulpn | grep:80 command and it returns:
tcp 0 0 0.0.0.0:80 0.0.0.0:* LISTEN 477/httpd
tcp 0 0 :::80 :::* LISTEN 477/httpd
So I had killed the process running on port 80 and I got kicked off my VPS immediately.
What ports should I be running my node.js webservice?
According to my putty settings the port I'm accessing is port 22, so I don't understand what is going on there.
Additionally, I'm not planning to run my webservice as root.
I've created another user with less permissions that will run the node.js webservice.

Answer 1

Setup nodejs to use port 8000
install nginx and set it up as a reverse proxy for your nodejs app.
Don't use Apache, it creates a thread/process for every request, while nginx doesn't. It works similar to nodejs event loop where you have a queue of request that need to be processed and nginx worker processes take each request from the queue and process it - in your case send a request to nodejs server and then wait for the response.
And never use nodejs on port 80, there are just too many use-cases to handle and there is no need to reinvent the wheel