How to setup next.js app on nginx with letsencrypt

next_nginx.md

How to setup Next.js app on Nginx with letsencrypt

Next.js, Nginx with Reverse proxy, SSL certificate

• UPDATE (07/20/2021):
  • This process got simplified over the years of this gist being out
  • Older version of this gist (without certbot): https://gist.github.com/kocisov/2a9567eb51b83dfef48efce02ef3ab06/33fdd88872a0801bdde58fccce430fa48737ae10
  • I would also now recommend deploying to Vercel if you don't need custom server support

1. Install Nginx, Node and certbot

In your server console/terminal

cd ~ # go to the current user's home directory
curl -sL https://deb.nodesource.com/setup_14.x -o nodesource_setup.sh
sudo bash nodesource_setup.sh

sudo apt update
sudo apt install nginx nodejs certbot python3-certbot-nginx

Also enable Nginx in ufw

sudo ufw allow 'OpenSSH' # needed for SSH connections
sudo ufw allow 'Nginx Full' # after installing Nginx!
sudo ufw enable

2. Setup letsencrypt with certbot

• You will need to point your domain to your server's IP with DNS Record (with A record, ...)

Edit our default Nginx site file

sudo vim /etc/nginx/sites-available/default

Content

You can keep everything other than server_name (domain) unchanged now

• example.com should be changed to the domain you are setting up the app on

server {
  # ...

  server_name example.com www.example.com;

  # ...
}

Restart nginx

sudo nginx -t # check syntax errors
sudo systemctl restart nginx

Run certbot command

sudo certbot --nginx -d example.com -d www.example.com
# certbot will guide you through setting up the certificate and different options of redirecting, ...

4. Setup Reverse proxy

Edit our Nginx file again

# ...

server {
  # ...

  server_name example.com www.example.com;

  # ...

  location / {
    # Reverse proxy for Next server
    proxy_pass http://localhost:3000;
    proxy_http_version 1.1;
    proxy_set_header Upgrade $http_upgrade;
    proxy_set_header Connection "upgrade";
    proxy_set_header Host $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 X-Forwarded-Host $host;
    proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-Port $server_port;

    # we need to remove this 404 handling
    # because of Next's error handling and _next folder
    # try_files $uri $uri/ =404;
  }

  # ...
}

Restart Nginx again

sudo nginx -t # check syntax errors
sudo systemctl restart nginx

4. Setup Next.js app

# assuming you have a GitHub repository for the app
git pull https://github.com/user/repo.git
cd repo
npm install # install app dependencies (or yarn install)
npm run build # build our app for production (or yarn build)

npm install -g pm2 # install pm2 for running our app detached

# run start/stop
pm2 start npm --name "next" -- start # start next app
pm2 stop next # for stopping app

We are done

Congratulations!

Now you have the Next.js app up and running on Nginx Reverse proxy with SSL on your https://domain.