I have a VPS where I have hosted a few sites. All based on LAMP stack, so it was no big deal. They provide WHM/cpanel for managing different sites. I decided to try node.js, bought a separate domain for it, and I need some clue how to point that domain to the node.js application.
So here are the questions:
1) What is the best way to host node.js application on a specific domain without hampering the other sites? How will I configure the domain? Yes, I'd like to use default http port (80) for node.
2) As Apache is already listening to the 80 port, is it a good idea to use Apache mod_proxy for the purpose? I mean if I want to use websocket, will apache still use separate threads for maintaining connection to node?
PS. I have already seen this question, but the answers don't seem to be convincing.
Edit:
I forgot to mention, I have an unused dedicated IP for that VPS which I can use for node.js.
Follow these steps
Goto "WHM >> Service Configuration >> Apache Configuration >> Reserved IPs Editor" and then 'Reserved' the IP that you want to use for node.js. This will release the IP from apache.
Create a new DNS entry with a A entry like - example.com A YOUR_IP_ADDRESS
Tell the node.js server to listen to your IP using server.listen(80, "YOUR_IP_ADDRESS");
If Apache is already listening to port 80, then the only thing you can do is proxy to your node instance. And yes, apache will create a new thread for each connection.
As others have mentioned, there's not a whole lot you can do here. Apache is currently driving your server and node.js won't like riding shotgun.
I'd recommend checking out things like nodester, no.de, heroku, and so on.
Related
I'm building a web application using the MEAN stack. The site contains authentication (using passport.js) so I would like to secure our connection with SSL/TLS.
For our deployment we're using nginx as a reverse proxy to the Node app running on the same AWS EC2 instance.
My question is: With my setup, what is the best practice way to setup an https (SSL/TLS) connection? Should I get a certificate and set it up at the nginx layer? Should I do it in my node app directly? Is there some other better way?
I've done some googling but haven't found anything profound. If anyone could point me to an article on the topic that would be very useful as well.
Thanks in advance!
First it's good to have SSL running on NGINX. So the communication is encrypted for the visitor in the first place (at least to the NGINX). If you're running Node on the same instance it's probably not absolutely necessary to encrypt also the traffic between Node and NGINX. But as soon as you have NGINX on another place running you should use SSL on Node too. As the data could potentially be accessed by Hackers.
I have a server running webmin (different domains pointing to different app/directories). Currently I can have my php app running from a directory and all I need to do in order to make it live is get webmin to direct that domain to that specific directory.
Can I do the same with a node js app? If not, how can I use node and webmin in the same box?
I know you didn't say this specifically, but assuming you're hosting the other web stuff through, say, Apache, you would need to leverage that, but you can probably get the effect you want. Basically, it sounds like you want to be able to use "host header" separation for services, rather than having a separate IP address for, say, Apache and Node.js to each use.
So, if you let Apache bind to the main port you're using (80/443/both), then you would run ode and have it configured to listen on a different port (say 8080 as in the example you left in another comment). You can then use mod_proxy in Apache and have it route request with certain domain names to Node. Here's a: more concrete example of this but really the idea is not specific to Node. It can apply to any other process that wants to respond to HTTP requests on your server (or even on a different server).
I have a Linode VPS, currently running lighttpd to serve up my PHP websites and listening on port 80.
I'm also running Node.js, which listens on port 81, and uses websockets and HTTP to interact with the client.
There's a couple of different domains that I would like to point to this server. Ideally, I would like the domains which host the PHP sites to all talk to the same lighttpd server, and the sites which use node.js would somehow redirect to the port node.js is listening on unbeknownst to the client (e.g. no 30x redirect).
example-php1.com:80 -> linodebox:80 lighttpd /var/www/example1
example-php2.com:80 -> linodebox:80 lighttpd /var/www/example2
example-node.com:80 -> linodebox:81 node.js
Is there a way to do this, either by setting DNS entries or tweaking iptables? Does lighttpd need to be a proxy for node.js? The websockets feature needs to work without any fallbacks, and visiting a non node domain, e.g. example-php1.com:81, should not expose the node application.
I feel the perfect solution wouldn't require changes to existing application code nor require proxying between software web servers, but I could be wrong.
What's up Tom!?
I recommend HA-Proxy, it's one of the most high performance proxies out there and should accomplish what you're trying to do there.
I'm doing something similar with nginx acting as a proxy, it's easy but not the fastest.
HA-Proxy's website is here http://haproxy.1wt.eu
If you wanted a 'pure' solution, you could probably get the answer from looking at ha-proxy's source code. You can't really do it with iptables. Something has to read the HTTP header to determine where the request came from to route it locally.
I had basically the same problem and I ended up using node-http-proxy (also available in npm as http-proxy).
You just need a simple config file:
{
router: {
'example-php1.com': 'linodebox:80',
'example-php2.com': 'linodebox:80',
'example-node.com': 'linodebox:81
}
}
Then just run node-http-proxy --config options.json and you're set. If you want to run lighttpd and node on the same machine, you'll have to start lighttpd on a different port (I use 81 for php and 3000 for node - adjusting the config is easy). I also use forever to manage my node instances.
Ya'll are gonna hate me...
I ended up going with a second IP address, then followed the Linode tutorial to setup multiple static IPs. Then, I configured lighttpd to bind to one IP address and Node.js to bind to another IP address.
This isn't a great solution as it doesn't scale.
Update: lighttpd 1.4.46 (released back in 2017) added multiple ways to accept WebSocket connections:
lighttpd mod_wstunnel
lighttpd mod_proxy
lighttpd mod_cgi
Please pardon my ignorance on node.js. I have started reading on node.js and have some perception which might be wrong. So needed it to clarify
When we use createServer() method, does it creates a virtual server. Not sure whether the term "virtual" is appropriate, but it's the best I can describe it :)
I am confused that how should I deploy my application having node.js + other custom js files as a part of it. If I deploy my application in the main server, does that mean I have two servers?
Thanks for bearing with me.
I will try to answer that:
Q1:
createServer basically creates a process which listens on the specified port for the requests. So yes you can call it as a virtual server which constantly listens for request at the port.
Q2:
Yes you can say that it has now 2 servers
For eg: you server had apache initially which listens to port 80 (you can access it as http://example.com/ it by default looks for port 80)
and then you also start the node service listening on some other port for eg: port 8456 (you can access it as http://example.com:8456/ which will look for port 8456)
So yes you can there are two servers.
EDIT
Q: So what would be the difference if the page is served by the physical server and the virtual server created by node.js?
Physical Server and Node Server are 2 different things and there is no way a single request is going to both the servers.
For eg:
I use apache server to host my website running on PHP. It serves all the html contents of my website (which involves connecting to mysql for data).
Some of the requests could be:
http://example.com/reports.php
http://example.com/search.php
At the other end I might be using nodejs server for totally another purpose. For eg: I might use it for an API, which returns JSON/XML in return. I can use this API myself for some dynamic contents by making AJAX calls with javascript or simple CURL commands from PHP. Or I might also make this API available to public.
Some of the requests could be:
http://example.com:8456/getList?apikey=¶m1=¶m2=
My choice for NodeJs Server used as an API would be for its ability to handle concurrent request and since its asynchronous for file operations it will be much faster than PHP.
In this case I have a website which is not only working on PHP but its the combination of 2 different technologies (PHP on Apache and Nodejs) and hence 2 servers are totally different running on same server but have there own execution space.
Third Question:
So what would be the difference if the page is served by the physical server and the virtual server created by node.js?
If I might add, it's a virtual server in the sense that apache is an virtual http server listening on whatever port. Of course apache had a lot more modules and plugins and configurations to it where as Node's is lighter (kind of like WEBrick for rails), non-blocking and agile for building on. Then again apache is more stable.. in other words, it's a decision of software, both sitting on the server listening to a particular port set by you.
That said there's deployment methods that allow you to place a node application in front of software such as nginx (another server-side software) or HAproxy (load handling with a lot of power), so really it's all up to how you choose to configure it.
Maybe I'm getting to far from your question, but I hope this helps!
Also, You should give the answer to the other guy, he came first ;)
I have a server that runs different websites on different ports. All of them (but one) are Apache servers and thanks to webmin, I managed to have, for instance, example.com point to 123.123.123.123:80 and example.fr to 123.123.123.123:8000, somehow automatically
I am now running a nodejs server on the same machine, so the 80, 8000, and many other ports are already taken. My nodejs listens on 8008. I have another domain name, say example.org, and I want it to point to my nodejs website, but I simply don't know how to do that! I have updated the DNS and everything is pointing to 123.123.123.123 (my server's IP). I want to avoid using an ugly example.org:8008/ for everything on this node server. How can I make it point implicitly to the 8008 port?? I must add that I cannot afford to take down the apache servers ;)
DNS only provides name to ip address mapping. It cannot handle ports. What you can do instead is to set up a proxy server listening on port 80. The proxy server can then return data based on the host header.
Your best option is to just redirect the request from Apache. Otherwise you can use a reverse proxy like Nginx. Also, you can write a lightweight proxy in node... check out this page