Setup Vagrant virtual box to run Node.js server

Tested on 18/05/2019

Pre-requirement

• Vagrant
• VirtualBox
• npm
• express-generator npm install express-generator -g

Create a Node.js skeleton

Hogan.js is the mustache syntax from twitter, very straight forward.

express --view=hogan my-node-app

Starting virtual machine

• Create vagrant folder
• Add .vagrant/ to .gitignore

From the empty vagrant folder

# install Vagrant box
# https://app.vagrantup.com/boxes/
vagrant box add ubuntu/xenial64
vagrant init ubuntu/xenial64
vagrant up
vagrant status
vagrant ssh

Config Vagrantfile file

• Vagrantfile is written in Ruby.
• In Vagrantfile, uncomment config.vm.network "private_network", ip: "192.168.33.10", you can have any IP you want, let's say 55.55.55.55
• Add shared folder, config.vm.provision "file", source: "./shared", destination: "$HOME/shared"

vagrant reload

• Use vagrant reload --provision to copy file from local shared folder to VM

Running nginx on virtual machine

From VM:

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install nginx
sudo service nginx start

Run sudo service nginx stop to stop the service

lsb_release -a: check Linux version

Adding domain name to local DNS lookup

Windows

C:\Windows\System32\Drivers\etc\hosts

Mac

sudo vim /etc/hosts

In hosts file, add line 55.55.55.55 dev.mynodeapp.com to the bottom

Install Node on VM

Tutorial

From VM:

cd ~
# Current LTS version: 10.x
curl -sL https://deb.nodesource.com/setup_10.x -o nodesource_setup.sh
sudo bash nodesource_setup.sh
sudo apt-get install nodejs -y
nodejs -v

Install yarn

curl -sS https://dl.yarnpkg.com/debian/pubkey.gpg | sudo apt-key add -
echo "deb https://dl.yarnpkg.com/debian/ stable main" | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/yarn.list
sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install yarn

Add a deploy user (For real machine only, should skip for Vagrant)

From VM:

sudo useradd --create-home -s /bin/bash deploy
sudo adduser deploy sudo
sudo passwd deploy

username: deploy

password: deploy-password

From VM:

mkdir .ssh

Copy ssh key to remote server

scp ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub deploy@url.com:~/.ssh/authorized_keys

Copy and build Node app

Instal yarn

curl -sS https://dl.yarnpkg.com/debian/pubkey.gpg | sudo apt-key add -
echo "deb https://dl.yarnpkg.com/debian/ stable main" | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/yarn.list
sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install yarn

Copy file

• Copy files from local machine to ./vagrant/shared/my-node-app folder. (Which we previously added provision to).
• Excluding the node_modules and vagrant folders.
• Run vagrant reload --provision to copy the files

From VM

mv ~/shared/my-node-app ~
cd ~/my-node-app
yarn
yarn start

Set environment variable on Utuntu

DEBUG=my-node-app:server yarn start

Open another SSL connection

curl http://localhost:3000

If you see the html page, the app is working properly on Vagrant VM now.

Run node server as a Linux system service

Install PM2

PM2: a process manager

sudo npm install -g pm2

# start application
pm2 start ./bin/www

# Save processes for Restart on Boot **IMPORTANT!!!**
pm2 save

# generate startup script
pm2 startup systemd

# remove from startup
pm2 unstartup systemd

# check systemctl
systemctl status pm2-vagrant

PM2 commands

pm2 stop <app_name_or_id>
pm2 restart <app_name_or_id>
pm2 delete www
pm2 delete all
pm2 info <app_name_or_id>

# show process monitor
pm2 monit

Run PM2 with a configuration file

This is the easiest way to use process.env environment variables

create a pm2.config.js file under project root directory

touch pm2.config.js
vim pm2.config.js

module.exports = {
  apps: [
    {
      name: 'my-node-app',
      script: './bin/www',
      watch: true,
      env: {
        PORT: 3000,
        NODE_ENV: 'production'
      },
      env_dev: {
        PORT: 3000,
        NODE_ENV: 'development'
      }
    }
  ]
}

• pm2 start pm2.config.js will start the app with default env
• pm2 start pm2.config.js --env dev will start the app in dev mode
• Don't forget pm2 save!!!

Running Node.js server in Cluster Mode

Node is running single core by default.

Create cluster.js file:

const cluster = require('cluster')

if (cluster.isMaster) {
  const cpuCount = require('os').cpus().length

  for (let i = 0; i < cpuCount; i += 1) {
    cluster.fork()
  }

  cluster.on('exit', function() {
    cluster.fork()
  })
} else {
  require('./bin/www')
}

However, we can simply run multiple node instance in PM2.

Add these configuration to pm2.config.js file

{
  apps : [{
    // ...
    instances : "max",
    exec_mode : "cluster"
  }]
}

Save the change, in pm2 list will show 2 instance in vagrant VM (2 core be default).

Set Up Nginx as a Reverse Proxy Server

sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install nginx -y

cd /etc/nginx/sites-available
sudo vim default

Vim tips

• i: switching to insert mode
• ESC: switching to command mode
• :q: quit (:q!: quit without save; :wq: write and quit)
• :w: write

Ningx setup

In /etc/nginx/nginx.conf

The # of cores your CPU is running

worker_processes: auto;

Check the # of cores

cat /proc/cpuinfo

Add proxy configuration into server block in /etc/nginx/sites-available/default file

server {
  ...
  location / {
    proxy_pass http://localhost:8080;
    proxy_http_version 1.1;
    proxy_set_header Upgrade $http_upgrade;
    proxy_set_header Connection 'upgrade';
    proxy_set_header Host $host;
    proxy_cache_bypass $http_upgrade;
  }
}

To map another url, e.g. http://dev.mynodeapp.com/app2

server {
  ...
  location / {
    ...
  }

  location /app2 {
    proxy_pass http://localhost:3000;
    proxy_http_version 1.1;
    proxy_set_header Upgrade $http_upgrade;
    proxy_set_header Connection 'upgrade';
    proxy_set_header Host $host;
    proxy_cache_bypass $http_upgrade;
  }
}

Testing current configuration

sudo nginx -t

Restart nginx

sudo systemctl restart nginx

Testing with Apache Bench

ab -c 40 -n 1000 http://dev.mynodeapp.com/