Deploy & Secure Your MERN App

commands.md

Tutorial:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=svEs1TafR7E

Note: You need to follow the tutorial in order to understand when and how to use the commands below

Commands used in the tutorial:

• First login: ssh root@<your-server-ip>

• Update Linux packages: apt update & apt upgrade

• Create user and add to sudo group: adduser <username> & usermod -aG sudo <username>

• Logout from server: logout

• Login as user: ssh <username>@<your-server-ip>

• Check if sudo works: sudo -v

• Create SSH key folder: mkdir ~/.ssh && chmod 700 ~/.ssh

• Generate SSH keys (run on your local machine): ssh-keygen -b 4096

• Send SSH keys to server:

  • Windows: scp $env:USERPROFILE/.ssh/id_rsa.pub <username>@<your-server-ip>:~/.ssh/authorized_keys
  • Mac: scp ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub <username>@<your-server-ip>:~/.ssh/authorized_keys
  • Linux: ssh-copy-id <username>@<your-server-ip>

• Open SSH configuration: sudo nano /etc/ssh/sshd_config

• List of reserved ports you should avoid for SSH: https://www.iana.org/assignments/service-names-port-numbers/service-names-port-numbers.xhtml

• Restart SSH: sudo systemctl restart sshd

• Login as user with your new SSH port: ssh <username>@<your-server-ip> -p <ssh-port-number>

• Install Firewall: sudo apt install ufw

• Show Firewall status: sudo ufw status

• Allow ports in Firewall: sudo ufw allow + <ssh-port-number> / http / https

• Enable Firewall: sudo ufw enable

• Modify Firewall rules: sudo nano /etc/ufw/before.rules

  • Disable pings: -A ufw-before-input -p icmp --icmp-type echo-request -j DROP

• Reboot server: sudo reboot

• NodeJS installation commands: https://github.com/nodesource/distributions#installation-instructions

• Check Node + NPM version: node --version, npm --version

• Install Git & check version: sudo apt install git, git --version

• Create an apps folder: mkdir apps

• Clone your repository: git clone <your-repo-url>

• See files inside a folder: ls (+ -a to show hidden files)

• Change directory: cd + <folder-name> / .. (go back)

• Open/modify files in Nano: nano <filename>

• Install packages (inside folders with a package.json): npm install

• Build React code (frontend folder): npm run build

• Install TypeScript: sudo npm install -g typescript

• Compile TypeScript (backend folder): tsc

• PM2 docs (with commands): https://pm2.keymetrics.io/

  • Note: You need to prepend sudo when installing PM2 globally

• Start server with PM2 (after compiling TypeScript): pm2 start dist/server.js

• Install NGINX: sudo apt install nginx

• Modify NGINX configuration: sudo nano /etc/nginx/sites-available/default

  • NGINX config changes (pay attention to the comments):

  root /home/florian/apps/MERN-course/frontend/build; # Use your own username & code path
  
  server_name codinginflow-sample.com www.codinginflow-sample.com; # Use your own domain
  
  location / {
      	try_files $uri /index.html;
  }
  
  location /api/ {
      proxy_pass http://localhost:5000; # Use your own port
      proxy_http_version 1.1;
      proxy_set_header Upgrade $http_upgrade;
      proxy_set_header Connection 'upgrade';
      proxy_set_header Host $host;
      proxy_cache_bypass $http_upgrade;
  }
  

• Check if NGINX config is valid: sudo nginx -t

• Restart NGINX: sudo service nginx restart

• Certbot instructions (SSL): https://certbot.eff.org/