Reputation: 21

Express/NodeJS application on Cpanel

Ok so I have an app with a Node/Express API and everything works fine on localhost. I'm trying to figure out how to make everything work on CPanel that's running on Apache. The client side stuff but I am unable to fetch any data from the backed. I've searched and looked, yes, but I'm still quite unsure on how to approach this. Do I have to use a Virtual Host and if so what are the specific steps I need to do?

Upvotes: 2

Answers (1)

Matías Fork

Reputation: 93

NodeJS doesn't run on Apache or Nginx. Most you can do in these web servers is to set a reverse proxy.

NodeJS has its own web-server. cPanel won't help you in that regard, since you only need to install NodeJS on your server (you must have SSH access-root), and run it from there. You can daemonize your Node process to keep running installing PM2 or Forever (NPM Packages).

Here's a good answer (search before asking, the issue might be solved by then).

Run node.js on cpanel hosting server

cPanel typically runs Apache or another web server that is shared among all the cPanel/unix accounts. The web server listens on port 80. Depending on the domain name in the requested URL, the web server uses "Virtual Hosting" to figure out which cPanel/unix account should process the request, i.e. in which home directory to find the files to serve and scripts to run. If the URL only contains an IP address, cPanel has to default to one of cPanel accounts.

Ordinarily, without root access, a job run by a cPanel account cannot listen on port 80. Indeed, the available ports might be quite restrictive. If 8080 doesn't work, you might try 60000. To access a running node.js server, you'll need to have the port number it's listening on. Since that is the only job listening on that port on that server, you should be able to point your browser to the domain name of any of the cPanel accounts or even the IP address of the server, adding the port number to the URL. But, it's typical to use the domain name for the cPanel account running the node.js job, e.g. http://cPanelDomainName.com:60000/ .

Of course port 80 is the default for web services, and relatively few users are familiar with optional port numbers in URLs. To make things easier for users, you can use Apache to "reverse proxy" requests on port 80 to the port that the node.js process is listening on. This can be done using Apache's RewriteRule directive in a configuration or .htaccess file. This reverse proxying of requests arguably has other benefits as well, e.g. Apache may be a more secure, reliable and manageable front-end for facing the public Internet.

Unfortunately, this setup for node.js is not endorsed by all web hosting companies. One hosting company that supports it, even on its inexpensive shared hosting offerings, is A2Hosting.com. They also have a clearly written description of the setup process in their Knowledge Base.

Finally, it's worth noting that the developers of cPanel are working on built-in node.js support. "If all of the stars align we might see this land as soon as version 68," i.e. perhaps early 2018.

References

Apache Virtual Hosting - http://httpd.apache.org/docs/2.4/vhosts/

Apache RewriteRule Directive - http://httpd.apache.org/docs/2.4/mod/mod_rewrite.html

A2Hosting.com Knowledge Base Article on Configuring Node.js - https://www.a2hosting.com/kb/installable-applications/manual-installations/installing-node-js-on-managed-hosting-accounts

cPanel Feature Request Thread for node.js Support - https://features.cpanel.net/topic/nodejs-hosting

Express/NodeJS application on Cpanel

Answers (1)

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