How to deploy a NodeJS application on Ubuntu 20.04

In this tutorial, we will explain how to install NodeJS and what you need to consider when deploying the application on Clouding servers.

Installing NodeJS

For Ubuntu and Debian:

apt-get install build-essential

NodeJS v13.x

curl -sL https://deb.nodesource.com/setup_13.x | bash -
apt-get install nodejs

NodeJS v12.x

curl -sL https://deb.nodesource.com/setup_12.x | bash -
apt-get install nodejs

NodeJS v10.x

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

For CentOS and AlmaLinux:

yum install gcc-c++ make
# or alternatively: yum groupinstall 'Development Tools'

NodeJS v13.x

curl -sL https://rpm.nodesource.com/setup_13.x | bash -
yum install nodejs

NodeJS v12.x

curl -sL https://rpm.nodesource.com/setup_12.x | bash -
yum install nodejs

NodeJS v10.x

curl -sL https://rpm.nodesource.com/setup_10.x | bash -
yum install nodejs

Deploying the NodeJS application

Generally, many of you will use a Git repository to download the project, so installing the required package is recommended:

# For Ubuntu and Debian
apt install git 
# For CentOS and AlmaLinux
yum install git

Then we can clone the repository with Git, using a command such as:

git clone https://example.com/repositorio_a_clonar.git

Next, we need to install our project's dependencies, so we will need to run the following:

npm install

And finally, we can run our application with NodeJS

node app

With this, we will have a NodeJS application up and running and listening on the default port, which is usually 3000.

Opening a port in the Firewall

Since the NodeJS application listens on port 3000, you need to enable this port in your server's Firewall profile. If you do not know how to do this, you can review this tutorial on how to create Firewall rules.

We should have something similar to this:

This way, you will have access to port 3000 from your browser.