Installing Express/Nginx app with SSL using Certbot on Ubuntu 18.04

This is a quick guide on how to setup NGINX as a reverse proxy in front of an Express.js application and how to have a free SSL certificate using Certbot, all in under 10 minutes!

Node.js & Express

Installing Node.js 10.x

curl -sL https://deb.nodesource.com/setup_10.x | sudo -E bash -
sudo apt-get install -y nodejs

Creating a basic Express app

mkdir my-app
cd my-app
npm init # Fill the form
npm install express

Create an index.js file and paste the following:

nano index.js

'use strict';

const express = require('express');
const app = express();

app.get('/', (req, res) => {
  res.send('Express/Nginx/Certbot tutorial');
});

app.listen(3001);

Install PM2

PM2 is a Node.js process manager that will run our app on the background & restart it on boot/crash.

sudo npm install -g pm2
sudo pm2 startup
sudo pm2 start index.js
sudo pm2 save

We can check that our app is running visiting http://yourdomain.com:3001 (You don't have an SSL certificate yet so https won't work)

Installing & Setting up Nginx

sudo apt install nginx

Now we have to create a server configuration

sudo nano /etc/nginx/sites-available/yourdomain.com.conf

And copy the following:

server {
  listen 80;
    
  server_name yourdomain.com www.yourdomain.com;
    
  location / {
    proxy_pass http://localhost:3001; # Change the port if needed
    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;
  }
}

Nginx lacks the command a2ensite that apache2 has on Ubuntu, so we have to create the symlink running the following command:

sudo ln -s /etc/nginx/sites-available/yourdomain.com.conf /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/

After that, we need to run:

sudo service nginx restart # or reload

To check Nginx installation visit: http://yourdomain.com

You will need to see the Express application being served.

Certbot:

Installation

sudo apt update
sudo apt install software-properties-common
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:certbot/certbot
sudo apt update
sudo apt install python-certbot-nginx 

Getting the certificate:

sudo certbot --nginx

The command will automatically detect the domain/s used in the server_name directive of the nginx conf.

After the execution you will have a certificate & the Nginx configuration will be changed automatically to use it.

Restart Nginx

sudo service nginx restart

And now go to: https://yourdomain.com