Getting Strapi to run in Plesk

[mortenmoulder]

Bug report

Required System information

• Node.js version: 16.15.0
• NPM version: 8.5.5
• Strapi version: 4.1.12
• Database: MySQL
• Operating system: CentOS Plesk

Describe the bug

I am trying to run Strapi on a CentOS Plesk installation. So far I had to do dnf (or yum) install gcc gcc-c++ make in order to get npm install to work. So far, so good. Next problem occurs when I want to run Strapi. I read that I had to create a file, app.js for example, containing the following:

const strapi = require(‘strapi’);
strapi().start();

If I then point Plesk at that file and start (or just run node app.js), I get the following error:

$ node app.js
node:internal/modules/cjs/loader:936
  throw err;
  ^

Error: Cannot find module 'strapi'
Require stack:
- /var/www/vhosts/website.com/public/app.js
    at Function.Module._resolveFilename (node:internal/modules/cjs/loader:933:15)
    at Function.Module._load (node:internal/modules/cjs/loader:778:27)
    at Module.require (node:internal/modules/cjs/loader:1005:19)
    at require (node:internal/modules/cjs/helpers:102:18)
    at Object.<anonymous> (/var/www/vhosts/website.com/public/app.js:1:16)
    at Module._compile (node:internal/modules/cjs/loader:1105:14)
    at Object.Module._extensions..js (node:internal/modules/cjs/loader:1159:10)
    at Module.load (node:internal/modules/cjs/loader:981:32)
    at Function.Module._load (node:internal/modules/cjs/loader:822:12)
    at Function.executeUserEntryPoint [as runMain] (node:internal/modules/run_main:77:12) {
  code: 'MODULE_NOT_FOUND',
  requireStack: [ '/var/www/vhosts/website.com/public/app.js' ]
}

However, I can get Strapi to build and run the application by doing node node_modules/@strapi/strapi/bin/strapi.js, which is kind of hacky, but it works.

Is there a better way?

Steps to reproduce the behavior

1. Setup Strapi on a Plesk server
2. Try to run npm run build or create the JS file listed above

[mortenmoulder]

Closing this. Seems like I had something wrong from the beginning. I understood that I had to run it in development to be able to access /admin, so my app.js file looked like this:

const strapi = require('strapi');

strapi({
    autoReload: true,
    serveAdminPanel: true
}).start();

Turns out that was a mistake. I've run NODE_ENV=production npm run build and then restarted my Node application in Plesk, and I can still access /admin.

For every Plesk user having issues: Remember to change the port in .env and config/server.js to 3000.

[strapi-bot]

This issue has been mentioned on Strapi Community Forum. There might be relevant details there:

https://forum.strapi.io/t/hosting-with-plesk-obsidian/2571/13