Kunezindlela eziningi ongakhipha ngazo uhlelo lwakho lokusebenza lwe-Nodejs, kungaba Ku-Cloud noma Ezindaweni. Kodwa-ke, akukhona nje ukuthumela uhlelo lwakho lokusebenza kodwa nokulusebenzisa ngendlela efanele. Ukuvikeleka nakho kuyisici esibalulekile okungafanele sizitshwe, futhi uma wenza kanjalo uhlelo lokusebenza ngeke lume isikhathi eside futhi kunethuba elikhulu lokuthi lube sengozini. Ngakho-ke, silapha ukukusiza ngezinyathelo zokuphakela uhlelo lokusebenza lwe-Nodejs ku-AWS. Sizokukhombisa ukuthi ungalufaka kanjani uhlelo lokusebenza lwe-Nodejs kuseva usebenzisa iziqukathi ze-Docker, i-RDS Amazon Aurora, i-Nginx ene-HTTPS, futhi uyifinyelele usebenzisa i-Domain Name.

 Okuqukethwe
Isitaki Sethuluzi
- I-Architecture: Faka uhlelo lokusebenza lwe-Nodejs kuseva ye-ec2 usebenzisa isitsha se-Docker, i-RDS Amazon Aurora, i-Nginx ene-HTTPS, futhi uyifinyelele usebenzisa i-Domain Name
- Okudingekayo
- Dala i-Ubuntu 20.04 LTS EC2 Instance ku-AWS
- Dala i-RDS Aurora nge-MySql Instance ku-AWS
- Faka okuncikile ku-EC2 Instance
- Faka uhlelo lokusebenza lwe-Nodejs kusibonelo se-AWS EC2 usebenzisa isitsha se-Docker, i-RDS Amazon Aurora, i-Nginx ene-HTTPS, futhi uyifinyelele usebenzisa i-Domain Name
- Yini elandelayo mayelana nendlela yokufaka uhlelo lokusebenza lwe-Nodejs ku-AWS?
- Isiphetho
- Imibuzo Evame Ukubuzwa
== Isitaki Sethuluzi ==
**Nodejs Isampula Lokusebenza**
Isampula yohlelo lokusebenza lwe-Nodejs enama-API angu-3 okungukuthi, isimo, faka kanye nohlu. Lawa ma-API azosetshenziselwa ukuhlola isimo sohlelo lokusebenza, ukufaka idatha kusizindalwazi nokulanda& bonisa idatha kusizindalwazi

**AWS EC2 Instance**
Isibonelo se-Ubuntu 20.04 LTS Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2) sizosetshenziselwa ukuphakela Uhlelo Lokusebenza lwe-Nodejs olufakwe esitsheni. Sizofaka i-Docker kulesi sibonelo phezu kokuthi yiziphi iziqukathi ezizokwakhiwa. Sizophinda sifake iKlayenti le-MySql kuleso sibonelo. Iklayenti le-MySql liyadingeka ukuxhuma ku-Aurora Instance ukuze udale itafula elidingekayo

**AWS RDS Amazon Aurora**
Idatha yethu izogcinwa ku-AWS RDS Amazon Aurora. Sizogcina izinkambu ezilula njengegama lomsebenzisi, i-imeyili-id kanye nobudala kuzogcinwa ku-AWS RDS Amazon Aurora Instance.

I-Amazon Aurora iyisizindalwazi esihlobene se-MySQL ne-PostgreSQL esitholakala ku-AWS

**I-Docker**
I-Docker iyinkundla yokufaka iziqukathi yokwakha Izithombe ze-Docker futhi uzihambise kusetshenziswa iziqukathi. Sizothumela uhlelo lokusebenza lwe-Nodejs kuseva, i-Nginx, ne-Certbot njengeziqukathi ze-Docker

**I-Docker-Compose**
Ukuphenya iziqukathi ze-Nodejs, Nginx, Certbot, sizosebenzisa i-Docker-Compose. I-Docker Compose isiza ukunciphisa ukuthunyelwa kweziqukathi nesikhathi sokuphatha

**Nginx**

Lokhu kuzosetshenziselwa ukunika amandla i-HTTPS kuhlelo lokusebenza lwesampula le-Nodejs nokuqondisa kabusha zonke izicelo zabasebenzisi kuhlelo lokusebenza lwe-Nodejs. Izosebenza njengommeleli ohlehlayo ukuze iqondise kabusha izicelo zomsebenzisi kuhlelo lokusebenza futhi izosiza ekuvikeleni uxhumano ngokunikeza ukucushwa ukuze kunikwe amandla i-SSL/HTTPS

**I-Certbot**
Lokhu kuzosenza sikwazi ukusebenzisa ngokuzenzakalela i-LetÃÂÃÂs Encrypt for Domain Validation kanye nokukhipha izitifiketi ze-SSL.

**Isizinda**
Ekupheleni kwedokhumenti, uzokwazi ukufinyelela isampula yohlelo lokusebenza lwe-Nodejs usebenzisa igama lakho lesizinda nge-HTTPS, okungukuthi ama-Nodejs akho esampula azovikelwa nge-inthanethi.

**I-PostMan**
Sizosebenzisa u-Postman ukuhlola ama-API ethu, okungukuthi ukuhlola isimo, ukufaka idatha, nohlu lwedatha evela kusizindalwazi.

Njengoba ngishilo, sizofaka uhlelo lokusebenza lwe-Nodejs kwiseva sisebenzisa iziqukathi ze-Docker, i-RDS Amazon Aurora, i-Nginx ene-HTTPS, futhi sifinyelele kuyo sisebenzisa i-Domain NameâÃÂà Â, asiqale siqonde i-architecture ngaphambi kokuthi sithole izandla zethu

== Izakhiwo: Faka uhlelo lokusebenza lwe-Nodejs kuseva ye-ec2 usebenzisa isitsha se-Docker, i-RDS Amazon Aurora, i-Nginx ene-HTTPS, futhi ufinyelele kuyo usebenzisa i-Domain Name ==
Sebenzisa uhlelo lokusebenza lwe-Nodejs kusibonelo se-ec2 usebenzisa i-Docker izotholakala ku-port 3000. Lolu hlelo lokusebenza lwesampula le-Nodejs lilanda idatha kusenzakalo se-RDS Amazon Aurora esidalwe ku-VPC efanayo naleso sesenzakalo se-EC2. Isibonelo se-Amazon Aurora DB sizoba yimfihlo futhi yingakho sifinyeleleka ngaphakathi kwe-VPC efanayo. Uhlelo lokusebenza lwe-Nodejs olusetshenziswe kusibonelo se-EC2 lungafinyelelwa kusetshenziswa i-IP yalo yomphakathi ku-port 3000, kodwa ngeke

Ukufinyelela izinhlelo zokusebenza ezimbobeni ezingajwayelekile akunconyiwe, ngakho-ke sizoba ne-Nginx ezosebenza njenge-Reverse Proxy futhi inike amandla Ukunqanyulwa kwe-SSL. Abasebenzisi bazozama ukufinyelela kuhlelo lokusebenza besebenzisa i-Domain Name futhi lezi zicelo zizodluliselwa ku-Nginx. I-Nginx izohlola isicelo futhi ngokususelwa ku-API, izoqondisa kabusha leso sicelo kuhlelo lokusebenza lwe-Nodejs. Uhlelo lokusebenza luzophinde lunqanyulwe nge-SSL, ngenxa yalokho ukuxhumana phakathi kweklayenti neseva kuzovikeleka futhi kuvikelwe.

Nawu umdwebo wezakhiwo onikeza ukucaca kokuphakelwa kohlelo lokusebenza lwe-Nodejs ku-AWS
== Okudingekayo ==
Ngaphambi kokuthi siqhubekele phambili ekukhipheni uhlelo lokusebenza lwe-Nodejs ku-AWS, kucatshangwa ukuthi usuvele unazo izimfuneko ezilandelayo.

- I-akhawunti ye-AWS
- I-PostMan nanoma iyiphi enye indlela emshinini wakho ukuhlola ama-API
- Isizinda esibhalisiwe ku-akhawunti yakho ye-AWS

== Dala i-Ubuntu 20.04 LTS EC2 Instance ku-AWS ==
Iya kokuthi httpsAWS.amazon.com/console/ bese ungena ku-akhawunti yakho

Ngemva kokungena ngempumelelo ku-akhawunti yakho, chofoza kubha yokusesha bese usesha i-EC2. Chofoza kumphumela ukuze uvakashele ideshibhodi ye-EC2 ukuze udale isenzakalo se-EC2


Lapha, chofoza okuthi âÃÂÃÂIzimo zokwethula ukuze ulungiselele futhi udale isenzakalo se-EC2

Khetha i-âÃÂÃÂUbuntu Server 20.04 LTSâÃÂàAMI

Ngingancoma ukuthi ukhethe okuthi t3.small kuphela ngezinjongo zokuhlola, lokhu kuzoba nama-CPU angu-2 kanye ne-RAM engu-2GB. Ungakhetha uhlobo lwesibonelo ngokwesidingo sakho nokukhetha kwakho

Ungagcina izilungiselelo ezizenzakalelayo bese uqhubekela phambili. Lapha, ngikhethe i-VPC ezenzakalelayo, uma ufuna ungakhetha i-VPC yakho. Yazi ukuthi, lapha ngizobe ngidala isibonelo ku-Subnet Yomphakathi

Kungcono ukubeka isikhala sediski esikhulu ku-30GB. Okunye kungaba okuzenzakalelayo

Nikeza âÃÂÃÂIgamaâÃÂÂâÃÂÃÂImvelo maka noma yimaphi amanani owakhethile. Ungase weqe lesi sinyathelo

Vumela ukuxhumana ku-port 22 kuphela kusuka ku-IP yakho. Uma uyivumela isuka ku-0.0.0.0/0, isibonelo sakho sizovumela noma ubani osesikhumulweni esingu-22

Buyekeza ukucushwa kanye, bese uchofoza kokuthi âÃÂÃÂLaunchâÃÂà uma yonke into ibukeka ilungile ukuze udale i-Instance

Ngaphambi kokuthi imodeli idalwe, idinga ukubhanqwa kokhiye. Ungakha ipheya yokhiye entsha noma usebenzise okhona. Chofoza inkinobho ethi âÃÂÃÂYethula izimoâÃÂàinkinobho ezoqalisa ukudalwa kwesibonelo

Ukuze uye kukhonsoli futhi uhlole isibonelo sakho, chofoza inkinobho ethi âÃÂÃÂBuka izimo.

Lapha, ungabona ukuthi isibonelo sidaliwe futhi sikusigaba âÃÂÃÂInitiatingâÃÂÃÂ. Phakathi kweminithi noma emi-2, ungabona isenzakalo sakho siqhubeka futhi sisebenza

Okwamanje, asidale i-RDS Instance

== Dala i-RDS Aurora nge-MySql Instance ku-AWS ==
Phinda uchofoze kubha yokusesha phezulu ekhasini futhi kulokhu sesha okuthi âÃÂÃÂRDSâÃÂÃÂ. Chofoza umphumela ukuze uvakashele Ideshibhodi ye-RDS

Kudeshibhodi ye-RDS, chofoza inkinobho ethi âÃÂÃÂYakha isizindalwaziâÃÂà inkinobho ukuze ulungiselele futhi udale isibonelo se-RDS

Khetha indlela âÃÂÃÂUkudala okululaâÃÂàindlela, âÃÂÃÂAmazon AuroraâààUhlobo lwenjini, âÃÂÃÂDev/TestâÃÂàusayizi wesibonelo se-DB kanje
Skrolela phansi kancane bese ucacise inkomba yeqoqo le-DB njengokuthi âÃÂÃÂmy-Nodejs- databaseâÃÂÃÂ. Ungacacisa noma yiliphi igama olithandayo njengoba kuyigama elinikezwe i-RDS Instance; Nokho, ngingaphakamisa ukusebenzisa igama elifanayo ukuze ungadideki ngenkathi ulandela izinyathelo ezilandelayo

Futhi, cacisa igama lomsebenzisi eliyinhloko njengokuthi âÃÂÃÂadminâÃÂÃÂ, iphasiwedi yalo, bese uchofoza kokuthi âÃÂàDala isizindalwaziâÃÂÃÂ

Lokhu kuzoqalisa ukudalwa kwe-RDS Amazon Aurora Instance. Yazi ukuthi endaweni yokukhiqiza noma ebukhoma, akumele usethe amagama abasebenzisi alula namagama ayimfihlo

Lapha, ungabona ukuthi isibonelo sisesimweni sokuthi âÃÂÃÂCreatingâÃÂÃÂ. Emaminithini angaba ngu-5-10, kufanele wenze isibonelo sisebenze

Bhala amanothi ambalwa lapha:
- Isibonelo se-RDS Amazon Aurora sizoba yimfihlo ngokuzenzekelayo, okusho ukuthi i-RDS Amazon Aurora ngeke itholakale emhlabeni wangaphandle futhi izotholakala kuphela ngaphakathi kwe-VPC.

- Isenzakalo se-EC2 kanye nese-RDS eze-VPC efanayo

- Isenzakalo se-RDS siyafinyeleleka esibonelweni se-EC2

== Faka okuncikile ku-EC2 Instance ==
Manje, ungakwazi ukuxhuma ku-Isimo esisidalile. Ngeke ngingene emininingwaneni yokuthi ungaxhuma kanjani kusibonelo futhi ngikholwa ukuthi usuyazi kakade

 Iklayenti le-MySql
Sizodinga iklayenti le-MySQL ukuze sixhume ku-RDS Amazon Aurora isibonelo futhi sakhe isizindalwazi kuso. Xhuma kusibonelo se-EC2 bese ukhiphe imiyalo elandelayo kuyo

- sudo apt update
- sudo kufanele ufake i-mysql-client
 Dala Ithebula
Sizodinga ithebula esibonelweni sethu se-RDS Amazon Aurora ukuze sigcine idatha yohlelo lwethu lokusebenza. Ukwakha ithebula, xhuma kusibonelo se-Amazon RDS Aurora usebenzisa iklayenti le-MySQL esilifake kusibonelo se-EC2 esinyathelweni sangaphambilini.

Kopisha i-Database Endpoint kusuka ku-Amazon Aurora Instance

Yenza okulandelayo okujwayelekile ngamavelu alungile
- mysql -u -p -h 
Here, my command looks as follows
- mysql -u admin -padmin1234 -h my-Nodejs-database.cluster-cxxjkzcl1hwb.eu-west-3.rds.amazonAWS.com
Once you get connected to the Amazon RDS Aurora instance, execute the following commands to create a table named “users”

show databases; use main; CREATE TABLE IF NOT EXISTS users(id int NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT, username varchar(30), email varchar(255), age int, PRIMARY KEY(id select * from users;
Refer to the following screenshot to understand command executions

 Create an Application Directory 
Now, let’s create a directory where we will store all our codebase and configuration files

- pwd
- cd /home/ubuntu/
- mkdir Nodejs-docker
- cd Nodejs-docker
 Clone the code repository on the EC2 instance 
Clone my Github Repository containing all the code. This is an optional step, I have included all the code in this document

- pwd
- cd /home/ubuntu/
- git clone httpsgithub.com/shivalkarrahul/DevOps.git
- cp /home/ubuntu/DevOps/AWS/Nodejs-docker/* /home/ubuntu/Nodejs-docker
**Note: **This is an optional step. If you copy all the files from the repository to the application directory then you do not need to create files in the upcoming steps; however, you will still need to make the necessary changes

== Deploy Nodejs app to AWS EC2 instance using a Docker container, RDS Amazon Aurora, Nginx with HTTPS, and access it using the Domain Name ==
 Docker, why use docker in your ec2 instance 
Docker is a containerization tool used to package our software application into an image that can be used to create Docker Containers. Docker helps to build, share and deploy our applications easily

The first step of Dockerization is installing Docker

 Install Docker 
- Check Linux Version
- cat /etc/issue
- Update the apt package index
- sudo apt-get update
- Install packages to allow apt to use a repository over HTTPS
- sudo apt-get install apt-transport-https ca-certificates curl gnupg lsb-release
- Add Docker’s official GPG key:
- curl -fsSL httpsdownload.docker.com/linux/ubuntu/gpg | sudo gpg –dearmor -o /usr/share/keyrings/docker-archive-keyring.gpg
- Set up the stable repository
- echo “deb [arch=amd64 signed-by=/usr/share/keyrings/docker-archive-keyring.gpg] httpsdownload.docker.com/linux/ubuntu $(lsb_release -cs) stable” | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/docker.list > /dev/null
- Update the apt package index
- sudo apt-get update
- Install the latest version of Docker Engine and containerd
- sudo apt-get install docker-ce docker-ce-cli containerd.io
- Check Docker version
- docker –version
- Manage Docker as a non-root user
- Create ‘docker’ group
- sudo groupadd docker
- Add your user to the docker group
- sudo usermod -aG docker 
- Exit

- exit
- Login back to the terminal
- Verify that you can run docker commands without sudo
- docker run hello-world
- Upon executing the above run command, you should see the output as follows

- Refer to the following screenshot to see the command that I have executed

 Dockerize your Node.js application in the EC2 instance 
Once you have Docker installed, the next step is to Dockerize the app. Dockerizing a Nodejs app means writing a Dockerfile with a set of instructions to create a Docker Image


Let’s create Dockerfile and a sample Nodejs app

- pwd
- cd /home/ubuntu/Nodejs-docker
- Create Dockerfile and paste the following in it, alternatively, you can copy the content from here as well

- vim Dockerfile
#Base Image node:12.18.4-alpine FROM node:12.18.4-alpine #Set working directory to /app WORKDIR /app #Set PATH /app/node_modules/.bin ENV PATH /app/node_modules/.bin:$PATH #Copy package.json in the image COPY package.json ./ #Install Packages RUN npm install express --save RUN npm install mysql --save #Copy the app COPY . ./ #Expose application port EXPOSE 3000 #Start the app CMD ["node", "index.js"]
- Create index.js and paste the following in it, alternatively, you can copy the content from here as well. This will be our sample Nodejs app

- vim index.js
const express = require('express const app = express const port = 3000; const mysql = require('mysql const con = mysql.createConnection({ host: "my-Nodejs-database.cluster-cxxjkzcl1hwb.eu-west3.rds.amazonAWS.com", user: "admin", password: "admin1234"app.getstatus', (req, res) => res.send({status: "I'm up and running app.listen(port, () => console.log(`Dockerized Nodejs Applications is listening on port ${port app.postinsert', (req, res) => { if (req.query.username && req.query.email && req.query.age) { console.log('Received an insert call con.connect(function(err) { con.query(`INSERT INTO main.users (username, email, age) VALUES req.query.username req.query.email req.query.age function(err, result, fields) { if (err) res.send(err); if (result) res.send({username: req.query.username, email: req.query.email, age: req.query.age if (fields) console.log(fields);} else { console.log('Something went wrong, Missing a parameter }app.getlist', (req, res) => { console.log('Received a list call con.connect(function(err) { con.query(`SELECT * FROM main.users`, function(err, result, fields) { if (err) res.send(err); if (result) res.send(result);
In the above file, change values of the following variables with the one applicable to your RDS Amazon Aurora instance:
- host: “my-Nodejs-database.cluster-cxxjkzcl1hwb.eu-west-3.rds.amazonAWS.com”
- user: “admin”
- password: “admin1234”
- Create package.json and paste the following in it, alternatively, you can copy the content from here as well

- vim package.json
{
“name”: “Nodejs-docker”,

“version”: “12.18.4”,
“description”: “Nodejs on ec2 using docker container”,
“main”: “index.js”,
“scripts”: {
“test”: “echo \”Error: no test specified\” && exit 1″
},
“author”: “Rahul Shivalkar”,
“license”: “ISC”
}
 Update the AWS Security Group 
To access the application, we need to add a rule in the Security Group to allow connections on port 3000. As I said earlier, we can access the application on port 3000, but it is not recommended. Keep reading to know our recommendations

- Go to the EC2 Dashboard, select the instance, switch to the “Security” tab, and then click on the Security groups link

- Select the “Inbound rules” tab and click on the “Edit inbound rules” button

- Add a new rule that will allow external connection from “MyIp” on the “3000” port

Learn more with our blog How to Dockerize a Node.js application

 Deploy the node.js server on the EC2 Server (Instance) 
- Let’s build a docker image from the code that we have

- cd /home/ubuntu/Nodejs-docker
- docker build -t Nodejs 

- Start a container using the image that we just build and expose it on port 3000
- docker run –name Nodejs -d -p 3000:3000 Nodejs
- You can see the container is running

- docker ps
- You can even check the logs of the container

- docker logs Nodejs
Now we have our Nodejs App Docker Container running

- Now you can access the application from your browser on port 3000

- Check the status of the application on /status api using the browser. httppublic-ip-of-ec2-instance>:3000/status
- You can insert some data in the application on /insert api using the Postman app using POST request

httppublic-ip-of-ec2-instance>:3000/insert?username=abc&[email protected]&age=2

- You can list the data from your application by using /list api from the browser
httppublic-ip-of-ec2-instance>:3000/list
- Alternatively, you can use the curl command from within the EC2 instance to check status, insert data, list data

- curl -XGET “httppublic-ip-of-ec2-instance>:3000/list”
- curl -XPOST “httppublic-ip-of-ec2-instance>:3000/insert?username=abc&email=[email protected]&age=26″
- Stop and remove the container
- docker stop Nodejs
- docker rm Nodejs
In this section, we tried to access APIs available for the application directly using the Public IP:Port of the EC2 instance. However, exposing non-standard ports to the external world in the Security Group is not at all recommended. Also, we tried to access the application over the HTTP protocol, which means the communication that took place from the Browser to the Application was not secure and an attacker can read the network packets

To overcome this scenario, it is recommended to use Nginx

 Nginx setup 
Let’s create an Nginx conf that will be used within the Nginx Container through a Docker Volume. Create a file and copy the following content in the file, alternatively, you can copy the content from here as well

- cd /home/ubuntu/Nodejs-docker
- mkdir nginx-conf
- vim nginx-conf/nginx.conf
server {
listen 80;
listen 80;
location ~ /.well-known/acme-challenge {
allow all;
root /var/www/html;
}
location / {
rewrite ^ httpshost$request_uri? permanent;
}
} server { listen 443 ssl http2; listen 443 ssl http2; server_name Nodejs.devopslee.com www.Nodejs.devopslee.com;
server_tokens off;
ssl_certificate /etc/letsencrypt/live/Nodejs.devopslee.com/fullchain.pem;
ssl_certificate_key /etc/letsencrypt/live/Nodejs.devopslee.com/privkey.pem;
ssl_buffer_size 8k;
ssl_dhparam /etc/ssl/certs/dhparam-2048.pem;
ssl_protocols TLSv1.2 TLSv1.1 TLSv1;
ssl_prefer_server_ciphers on;
ssl_ciphers ECDH+AESGCM:ECDH+AES256:ECDH+AES128:DH+3DES:!ADH:!AECDH:!MD5;
ssl_ecdh_curve secp384r1;
ssl_session_tickets off;
ssl_stapling on;
ssl_stapling_verify on;
resolver 8.8.8.8;
location / {
try_files $uri @Nodejs;
}
location @Nodejs {
proxy_pass httpNodejs:3000;
add_header X-Frame-Options "SAMEORIGIN" always;
add_header X-XSS-Protection "1; mode=block" always;
add_header X-Content-Type-Options "nosniff" always;
add_header Referrer-Policy "no-referrer-when-downgrade" always;
add_header Content-Security-Policy "default-src * data: 'unsafe-eval' 'unsafe-inline'" always;
}
root /var/www/html;
index index.html index.htm index.nginx-debian.html;
}
In the above file make changes in the 3 lines mentioned below. Replace my subdomain.domain, i.e. Nodejs.devopslee, with the one that you want and have

- server_name Nodejs.devopslee.com www.Nodejs.devopslee.com;
- ssl_certificate /etc/letsencrypt/live/Nodejs.devopslee.com/fullchain.pem;
- ssl_certificate_key /etc/letsencrypt/live/Nodejs.devopslee.com/privkey.pem;
 Why do you need Nginx in front of the node.js service? 
Our Nodejs application runs on a non-standard port 3000. Nodejs provides a way to use HTTPS; however, configuring the protocol and managing SSL certificates that expire periodically within the application code base, is something we should not be concerned about

To overcome these scenarios, we need to have Nginx in front of it with SSL termination and forward user requests to Nodejs. Nginx is a special type of web server that can act as a reverse proxy, load balancer, mail proxy, and HTTP cache. Here, we will be using Nginx as a reverse proxy to redirect requests to our Nodejs application and have SSL termination

 Why not Apache? 
Apache is also a web server and can act as a reverse proxy. It also supports SSL termination; however, there are a few things that differentiate Nginx from Apache. Due to the following reasons, mostly Nginx is preferred over Apache. Let’s see them in short

- Nginx has a single or a low number of processes, is asynchronous and event-based, whereas Apache tries to make new processes, new threads for every request in every connection

- Nginx is lightweight, scalable, and easy to configure. On the other hand, Apache is great but has a higher barrier to learning

 Docker-Compose 
Let’s install docker-compose as we will need it

- Download the current stable release of Docker Compose
- sudo curl -L “httpsgithub.com/docker/compose/releases/download/1.29.2/docker-composeuname -suname -m)” -o /usr/local/bin/docker-compose
- Apply executable permissions to the docker-compose binary we just downloaded in the above step

- sudo chmod +x /usr/local/bin/docker-compose
- Test if the installation was successful by checking the docker-compose version
- docker-compose –version
- Create a docker-compose.yaml file, alternatively you can copy the content from here as well. This will be used to spin the docker containers of our application tech stack that we have

- cd /home/ubuntu/Nodejs-docker
- vim docker-compose.yml
version: '3'
services:
Nodejs:
build:
context: 

dockerfile: Dockerfile
image: Nodejs
container_name: Nodejs
restart: unless-stopped
networks:
- app-network
webserver:

image: nginx:mainline-alpine
container_name: webserver
restart: unless-stopped
ports:
- "80:80"
- "443:443"
volumes:
- web-root:/var/www/html
- ./nginx-conf:/etc/nginx/conf.d
- certbot-etc:/etc/letsencrypt
- certbot-var:/var/lib/letsencrypt
- dhparam:/etc/ssl/certs
depends_on:
- Nodejs
networks:
- app-network
certbot:
image: certbot/certbot
container_name: certbot
volumes:
- certbot-etc:/etc/letsencrypt
- certbot-var:/var/lib/letsencrypt
- web-root:/var/www/html
depends_on:
- webserver
command: certonly --webroot --webroot-path=/var/www/html --email [email protected] --agree-tos --no-eff-email --staging -d Nodejs.devopslee.com -d www.Nodejs.devopslee.com
#command: certonly --webroot --webroot-path=/var/www/html --email [email protected] --agree-tos --no-eff-email --force-renewal -d Nodejs.devopslee.com -d www.Nodejs.devopslee.com
volumes:
certbot-etc:
certbot-var:
web-root:
driver: local
driver_opts:
type: none
device: /home/ubuntu/Nodejs-docker/views/
o: bind
dhparam:
driver: local
driver_opts:
type: none
device: /home/ubuntu/Nodejs-docker/dhparam/
o: bind
networks:
app-network:
driver: bridge
In the above file make changes in the line mentioned below. Replace my subdomain.domain, i.e. Nodejs.devopslee, with the one that you want and have. Change IP for your personal Email

–email EMAIL, Email used for registration and recovery contact

- command: certonly –webroot –webroot-path=/var/www/html –email [email protected] –agree-tos –no-eff-email –staging -d Nodejs.devopslee.com -d www.Nodejs.devopslee.com
 Update the AWS security groups 
This time, expose ports 80 and 443 in the security group attached to the EC2 instance. Also, remove 3000 since it is not necessary, because the application works through port 443

 Include the DNS change 
Here, I have created a sub-domain “Nodejs.devopslee.com” that will be used to access the sample Nodejs application using the domain name rather than accessing using an IP

You can create your sub-domain on AWS if you already have your domain

Create 2 “Type A Recordsets” in the hosted zone with a value as EC2 instances’ public IP

One Recordset will be subdomain.domain.com and the other will be www.subdomain.domain.com

Here, I have created Nodejs.devopslee.com and www.Nodejs.devopslee.com, both pointing to the Public IP of the EC2 instance


**Note: **I have not assigned any Elastic IP to the EC2 instance. It is recommended to assign an Elastic IP and then use it in the Recordset so that when you restart your EC2 instance, you don’t need to update the IP in the Recordset because public IPs change after the EC2 instance is restarted

Now, copy values of the “Type
NS Recordset”, we will need these in the next steps

Go to the Hosted zone of your domain and create a new “Record” with your subdomain.domain.com adding the NS values you copied in the previous step

Now, you have a sub-domain that you can use to access your application

In my case, I can use Nodejs.devopslee.com to access the Nodejs application. We are not done yet, now the next step is to secure our Nodejs web application

 Include the SSL certificate 
Let’s generate our key that will be used in Nginx

- cd /home/ubuntu/Nodejs-docker
- mkdir views
- mkdir dhparam
- sudo openssl dhparam -out /home/ubuntu/Nodejs-docker/dhparam/dhparam-2048.pem 2048
 Deploy Nodejs app to EC2 instance 
We are all set to start our Nodejs app using docker-compose

This will start our Nodejs app on port 3000, Nginx with SSL on port 80 and 443. Nginx will redirect requests to the Nodejs app when accessed using the domain. It will also have a Certbot client that will enable us to obtain our certificates

- docker-compose up
After you hit the above command, you will see some output as follows. You must see a message as “Successfully received certificates”

**Note The above docker-compose command will start containers and will stay attached to the terminal. We have not used the -d option to detach it from the terminal

You are all set, now hit the URL in the browser and you should have your Nodejs application available on HTTPS

You can also try to hit the application using the curl command
- List the data from the application
- Insert an entry in the application
- Again list the data to verify if the data has been inserted or not
- Check the status of the application
- Hit the URL in the browser to get a list of entries in the database

- httpsNodejs.devopslee.com/list
 Auto-Renewal of SSL Certificates 
Certificates we generate using Let’s Encrypt are valid for 90 days, hence we need to have a way to renew our certificates automatically so that we don’t end up with expired certificates

To automate this process, let’s create a script that will renew certificates for us and a cronjob to schedule the execution of this script

- Create a script with –dry-run to test our script
- vim renew-cert.
bin/bash

COMPOSEusr/local/bin/docker-compose --no-ansi"
DOCKERusr/bin/docker"
cd /home/ubuntu/Nodejs-docker/
$COMPOSE run certbot renew --dry-run && $COMPOSE-s SIGHUP webserver
$DOCKER system prune -af
- Change permissions of the script to make it executable

- chmod 774 renew-cert.
- Create a cronjob
- sudo crontab -e
*/5 /home/ubuntu/Nodejs-docker/renew-cert.>> /var/log/cron.log 2>&1
- List the cronjobs

- sudo crontab -l
- Check logs of the cronjob after 5 mins, as we have set a cronjob to be executed on every 5th minute
- tail -f /var/log/cron.lo
In the above screenshot, you can see a “Simulating renewal of an existing certificate message. This is because we have specified the “–dry-run” option in the script

- Let’s remove the “–dry-run” option from the script

- vim renew-cert.
bin/bash
COMPOSEusr/local/bin/docker-compose --no-ansi"
DOCKERusr/bin/docker"
cd /home/ubuntu/Nodejs-docker/
$COMPOSE run certbot renew && $COMPOSE-s SIGHUP webserver
$DOCKER system prune -af
This time you won’t see such a “Simulating renewal of an existing certificate message. This time the script will check if there is any need to renew the certificates, and if required will renew the certificates else will ignore and say “Certificates not yet due for renewal”
== What is next on how to deploy the Nodejs app to AWS? ==
We are done with setting up our Nodejs application using Docker on AWS EC2 instance; however, there are other things that come into the picture when you want to deploy a highly available application for production and other environments. The next step is to use an Orchestrator like ECS or EKS to manage our Nodejs application at the production level. Replication, Auto-scaling, Load Balancing, Traffic Routing, Monitoring container health does not come out of the box with Docker and Docker-Compose. For managing containers and microservices architecture at scale, you need a Container Orchestration tool like ECS or EKS

Also, we did not use any Docker Repository to store our Nodejs app Docker Image. You can use AWS ECR, a fully managed AWS container registry offering high-performance hosting

If you want to create a cloud-native architecture, check out our video What is a Cloud-Native Architecture and how to adopt it?

== Conclusion ==
To deploy Nodejs app to AWS does not mean just creating a Nodejs application and deploying it on the AWS EC2 Instance with a self-managed database. There are various aspects like Containerizing the Nodejs App, SSL Termination, Domain for the app that come into the picture when you want to speed up your Software Development, Deployment, Security, Reliability, Data Redundancy

In this article, we saw the steps to dockerize the sample Nodejs application, use AWS RDS Amazon Aurora and deploy Nodejs app to ec2 instance using Docker and Docker-Compose. We enabled SSL termination to our sub-domain to be used to access the Nodejs application. We saw the steps to automate domain validation and SSL certificate creation using Certbot along with a way to automate certificate renewal that is valid for 90 days

This is enough to get started with a sample Nodejs application; however, when it comes to managing your real-time applications, 100s of microservices, 1000s of containers, volumes, networking, secrets, egress-ingress, you need a Container Orchestration tool. There are various tools like self-hosted Kubernetes, AWS ECS, AWS EKS that you can leverage to manage the container life cycle in your real-world applications

== FAQs ==
**Why do we need to deploy Nodejs app to AWS using Nginx
To deploy Nodejs app to AWS with SSL Termination requires changes in the code of the Nodejs. So, rather than making HTTPS configuration in the code and managing it on our own and being worried about it, it is better to use Nginx that can be used for the SSL termination and can act as a Reverse proxy to redirect requests to our Nodejs application

**Why do we need to use the SSL Termination for our Nodejs application
When communication takes place between a client and a server, i.e. between the browser and the Nodejs application, over theconnection, there are high chances of data theft, attacks on the server. To overcome such risks, it is always recommended to enable SSL Termination and communicate over a secured connection

**Why do we need to use a Container Orchestration Tool to manage our containers
Managing a few containers using docker CLI, or managing 10s of containers using docker-compose is fine. This does stand true when you have 100s and 1000s of micro-services, containers on multiple environments like Dev, QA, Staging, Prod. To not only manage containers but log management, monitoring, networking, load balancing, testing, and secrets management you need some kind of tool called a Container Orchestrator. There are various Container Orchestration tools like ECS or EKS that can help you manage your containers and other moving parts

**Can I deploy a Nodejs application on any other Cloud than AWS or Do I need to deploy Nodejs app to AWS

Yes, of course. You can deploy your Nodejs app on any Cloud. However, while choosing a Cloud provider there are a few areas of consideration as follows that one must think of

Certifications & Standards

Global Infrastructure
Data redundancy:
Low Latency Content Delivery:
Affordable Compute, Network and Storage solutions
Pricing model
Technologies & Service Roadmap
Contracts,& SLAs