Introduction #

After you’ve developed a server with NodeJS you need to move that into production.

There are two options when it comes to putting your backend into production, the easiest way is to use a service that automatically builds and starts your app, like heroku; or use a personal or cloud server to set up the backend. In this tutorial I will go over the latter option.

1. Moving Project to Server #

Upload your project to github. Then clone it to the backend.

2. Setting up Port Forwarding #

If you have a LAN you have to set up port forwarding. Port forwarding is a system that forwards any request on your global IP address to your local IP address, in this case the local IP address is your ubuntu server. Setting up port forwarding depends on your ISP, do some research and set up port forwarding on your router. If your using a cloud povider like aws you can figure that out in their documentation page.

3. Setting up a Firewall with ufw #

If you want to open up your server to the internet you must set up a firewall. A simple way to do that is use ufw. This article is a great introduction to ufw. Once you have it set up, you need to allow incoming requests to the ip that your server is running on.

4. Running Server #

At this point you can just run your NodeJS server. The caveat is that it wont run efficently and you will not get any server monitoring. If you want to to add server monitoring along with features that improve the performance of your server, check out pm2 a NodeJS process manager.