🚀 Deploy Node.js on AWS EC2

Deploying a Node.js app from Windows → WSL → AWS EC2, step-by-step, clearly and cleanly.

💡 Pro Tip: If you’ve used other AWS services (like Route 53, CloudFront, Lambda, RDS), list them in your resume or project to show off your experience!

Why Choose EC2 Over Apache?

TL;DR:

Learn Apache for basic web server setup and personal projects.
Learn EC2 for production-ready, scalable, DevOps-style deployments.

EC2 vs Apache

Apache:

✅ Easy to get started
✅ Great for static sites or small apps
❌ Not scalable by itself
❌ Lacks built-in tools (monitoring, backups, etc.)

EC2:

✅ Cloud VM — run anything on it
✅ Supports scaling, snapshots, monitoring, IAM, etc.
✅ DevOps-ready
❌ Steeper learning curve
❌ You still need to configure Apache, Node.js, etc.

💡 Simple Analogy: EC2 is the house. Apache is the kitchen. You install Apache inside EC2 to “cook” your web content.

📦 Deployment Goal

Deploy your local Node.js app (port 5001) to AWS EC2 using WSL and rsync.

📘 Step-by-Step Deployment Guide

Test app locally:
```
npm install npm start
```
Visit: http://localhost:5001

Set up WSL:

wsl --install

Then restart and install rsync:

sudo apt update sudo apt install rsync

Go to your Node.js folder in WSL:

cd "/mnt/c/Users/Dell Inspiron/Documents/GitHub/node-express-ec2"

Move your SSH key to WSL:

cp "/mnt/c/Users/Dell Inspiron/.ssh/ssh1.pem" ~/.ssh/ chmod 400 ~/.ssh/ssh1.pem

Run rsync to upload app to EC2:

rsync -avz --exclude 'node_modules' --exclude '.git' --exclude '.env' \ -e "ssh -i ~/.ssh/ssh1.pem" \ . ubuntu@ec2-YOUR-PUBLIC-IP.compute-1.amazonaws.com:~/app

SSH into EC2:

ssh -i ~/.ssh/ssh1.pem ubuntu@ec2-YOUR-PUBLIC-IP.compute-1.amazonaws.com

Set up Node.js environment:

cd ~/app sudo apt update sudo apt install -y nodejs npm npm install npm start

Access from browser:
Update Inbound Rules in EC2 to allow port 5001, then visit:
```
http://EC2_PUBLIC_IP:5001
```

⚙️ One-Click Deployment Script (Optional)

1. Create Script

nano deploy.sh

Paste this:

#!/bin/bash

    KEY_PATH="$HOME/.ssh/ssh1.pem"
    REMOTE_USER="ubuntu"
    REMOTE_HOST="ec2-YOUR-PUBLIC-IP.compute-1.amazonaws.com"
    REMOTE_DIR="~/app"

    echo "🚀 Starting deployment to $REMOTE_HOST"

    rsync -avz --exclude 'node_modules' --exclude '.git' --exclude '.env' \
    -e "ssh -i $KEY_PATH" \
    . $REMOTE_USER@$REMOTE_HOST:$REMOTE_DIR

    echo "✅ Code synced. Logging into EC2..."
    ssh -i $KEY_PATH $REMOTE_USER@$REMOTE_HOST << 'EOF'
      cd ~/app
      npm install
      npm start
    EOF

2. Make Script Executable

chmod +x deploy.sh

3. Deploy

./deploy.sh