Ubuntu + Node.js + PM2 + Nginx with Ansible

This repository contains a basic skeleton for an multi-app/multi-service environment based on node.js.

Nginx is in front of the node.js apps and acts as a reverse proxy.

The Ansible playbook deploys the setup to an Ubuntu host.

This setup can be used for development via Vagrant.

Via Vagrant it is also possible to deploy the same setup to Digital Ocean

Setup

• install VirtualBox
• install Vagrant
• install Ansible
• fetch the franklinkim.nodejs role with ansible-galaxy install -r requirements.yml
• run vagrant up to spin up the virtual machine

Result

With the steps above you get the following:

• a ubuntu/trusty64 VM
• 2 Hello World Node.js apps
• PM2 as the process manager for the 2 Node.js apps
• Nginx running on port 80:
  • / serves the default Nginx welcome page
  • /app is a reverse proxy call for app.js
  • /otherapp is a reverse proxy call for otherapp.js
• Vagrant forwards port 80 to 8080

Copy keymetrics/vars.default.yml to keymetrics/vars.yml and replace the content with

---
### keymetrics configuration
keymetrics: yes
keymetrics_public_key: YourKeymetricsPublicKey
keymetrics_secret_key: YourKeymetricsSecretKey

and you will also see the dashboard with both apps in Keymetrics.

Deploy to Digital Ocean

• install the Digital Ocean plugin for Vagrant: vagrant plugin install vagrant-digitalocean
• copy digitalocean/config.default.yml to digitalocean/config.yml and edit it to add your token (it is also possible to tweak the other settings for the droplet)
• run vagrant up --provider=digital_ocean and wait for your droplet to be created

More information

A detailed explanation about most of this is available on Medium.