1. Pre-requisites

1. VPS, ideally Ubuntu LTS distribution (I recommend OVH)
2. Domain DNS A records pointing to your server IP address
3. Next.js (or any other Node.js app) github repo

2. Initial set-up on VPS

1. Access your VPS through SSH

   ssh root@vps_ip
   

   You should have received an e-mail from VPS provider with login details

2. Create new user with admin privileges

3. exit from the root account

4. SSH with your new user

   ssh new_user@vps_ip
   

5. Generate SSH token for Github

6. Add it to your GitHub account settings

   a. You can use cat ~/.ssh/id_ed25519.pub command to copy the SSH public key from VPS

3. Front-end app and PM2 set-up

1. Create apps folder with

   cd ~ && mkdir apps && cd apps
   

2. Install NVM, then install Node.js

   nvm install node
   

3. Install PM2

   npm install pm2@latest -g
   

4. Clone your Next.js repo

   git clone git@github.com:username/repo.git
   

   a. cd into it then

   npm install && npm run build
   

5. Create PM2 ecosystem config in ~/apps with

   pm2 ecosystem
   rm ecosystem.config.js
   touch ecosystem.config.js
   

6. Open ecosystem file

   nano ecosystem.config.js
   

   and populate it with:

   module.exports = {
     apps: [
       {
         name: 'next',
         cwd: '/home/YOUR_VPS_USERNAME/apps/YOUR_REPO_NAME/',
         script: 'npm',
         args: 'start',
         exec_interpreter: '/home/YOUR_VPS_USERNAME/.nvm/versions/node/NODE_VERSION/bin/node',
         env: {
           // here you can provide ENV variables
           NEXT_PUBLIC_TEST: 'NEXT_PUBLIC_TEST',
         },
       },
     ],
   };
   

   remember to change YOUR_VPS_USERNAME, YOUR_REPO_NAME, NODE_VERSION (check with node -v)

7. Start PM2 ecosystem

   pm2 start ecosystem.config.js
   

8. Check if your app is running

   curl http://localhost:3000
   

   If not, then use

   pm2 logs --lines=9000
   

   to debug. Fix errors, then

   pm2 kill && pm2 flush
   

   to kill all processess and delete the the old logs. Then start ecosystem again

   pm2 start ecosystem.config.js
   

9. Configure PM2 to restart your apps automatically and let it start on system reboot. First run

   pm2 startup systemd
   

   and then run the command from the output of above command

10. Save your PM2 environment

    pm2 save
    

11. Start the PM2 service

    sudo systemctl start pm2-YOUR_USERNAME
    

    and reboot the system

    sudo reboot
    

    Then connect to VPS through SSH again

12. Run

    pm2 monit
    

    profit 🎉

13. Useful PM2 commands

    a. pm2 list - lists the apps managed by PM2

    b. pm2 restart app_name - restarts the app

    c. pm2 info app_name - gets info about app

    d. pm2 monit - process monitor displaying resources usage and their statuses

Nginx set-up

1. Install Nginx

   sudo apt update && sudo apt install nginx
   

2. Configure firewall

   a. Check available apps

   sudo ufw app list
   

   b. Add Nginx HTTP app

   sudo ufw allow 'Nginx HTTP'
   

   c. Verify firewall status

   sudo ufw status
   

   d. Check if Nginx service is running

   systemctl status nginx
   

   e. Open your site VPS address in the browser. You can check the IP addres via

   curl -4 icanhazip.com
   

   You should see the default Nginx page 🎉

   f. Create configuration file for Nginx site

   sudo nano /etc/nginx/sites-available/YOUR_DOMAIN.com
   

   with:

   server {
   listen 80;
   listen [::]:80;
   
        server_name YOUR_DOMAIN.COM www.YOUR_DOMAIN.COM;
   
        location / {
            proxy_pass http://localhost:3000;
            proxy_http_version 1.1;
            proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-Host $host;
            proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-Server $host;
            proxy_set_header X-Real-IP $remote_addr;
            proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-For $proxy_add_x_forwarded_for;
            proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-Proto $scheme;
            proxy_set_header Upgrade $http_upgrade;
            proxy_set_header Connection "Upgrade";
            proxy_set_header Host $http_host;
            proxy_pass_request_headers on;
        }
   
   }
   
   

   remember to change YOUR_DOMAIN.com

3. Create a symlink from sites-available to sites-enabled using

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

4. Make sure there are no errors in Nginx config

   sudo nginx -t
   

5. Configure Nginx start up on system reboot

   sudo systemctl enable nginx
   

6. Open Nginx config file

   sudo nano /etc/nginx/nginx.conf
   

   and uncomment the line:

   server_names_hash_bucket_size 64;
   

7. Restart Nginx

   sudo systemctl restart nginx
   

   and visit http://YOUR_DOMAIN.com 🎉

Secure your Nginx site with Let's Encrypt using Certbot

1. Update firewall settings to allow only HTTPS

   sudo ufw allow 'Nginx Full'
   sudo ufw delete allow 'Nginx HTTP'
   

2. Install Certbot

   sudo snap install core
   sudo snap refresh core
   sudo snap install --classic certbot
   

3. Ensure Certbot installed correctly

   sudo ln -s /snap/bin/certbot /usr/bin/certbot
   

4. Obtain certificate

   sudo certbot --nginx -d YOUR_DOMAIN.com -d www.YOUR_DOMAIN.com
   

5. Check renewal process status

   sudo systemctl status certbot.timer
   

6. Manualy test the renewal dry-run

   sudo certbot renew --dry-run
   

7. Visit https://YOUR_DOMAIN.com 🎉

Resources

• https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tutorials/initial-server-setup-with-ubuntu-20-04
• https://docs.github.com/en/github/authenticating-to-github/connecting-to-github-with-ssh/generating-a-new-ssh-key-and-adding-it-to-the-ssh-agent
• https://docs.github.com/en/github/authenticating-to-github/connecting-to-github-with-ssh/adding-a-new-ssh-key-to-your-github-account
• https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tutorials/how-to-set-up-a-node-js-application-for-production-on-ubuntu-20-04
• https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tutorials/how-to-install-nginx-on-ubuntu-20-04

todo

1. add directus app in the next steps to ecosystem, add ssl

{
name: 'cms',
cwd: '~/apps/cms/',
script: 'npm',
args: 'start',
exec_interpreter: '~/.nvm/versions/node/NODE_VERSION/bin/node',
},