DEPLOYING NODE.JS APPS ON AWS EC2 WITH DOCKER & NGINX

Deploying a Node.js REST API to production requires more than just running node index.js. For enterprise reliability, you need container isolation using Docker, reverse proxying with Nginx, process supervision, and automated SSL termination via Let's Encrypt.

1. Multi-Stage Dockerfile Strategy

To keep production Docker images minimal, use multi-stage builds. Separating your build layer from runtime dependencies reduces final image sizes by up to 75%:

# Build stage
FROM node:20-alpine AS builder
WORKDIR /app
COPY package*.json ./
RUN npm ci
COPY . .
RUN npm run build

# Production stage
FROM node:20-alpine AS runner
WORKDIR /app
ENV NODE_ENV=production
COPY --from=builder /app/package*.json ./
COPY --from=builder /app/dist ./dist
RUN npm ci --only=production
EXPOSE 3000
CMD ["node", "dist/index.js"]

2. Configuring Nginx Reverse Proxy

Nginx handles TLS termination, protects your internal Node.js port 3000, and enables request rate limiting. Here is a battle-tested server block configuration:

server {
    server_name api.yourdomain.com;

    location / {
        proxy_pass http://127.0.0.1:3000;
        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;
    }
}

3. Automated SSL & EC2 Deployment

Once your Docker container is running on AWS EC2, run sudo certbot --nginx -d api.yourdomain.com to automatically request and install an SSL certificate. This setup ensures zero downtime and automated SSL renewals.