启动Node js应用

Question

So I created a node app that uploads pictures and the app works locally, I can upload stuff from all of my home devices and they end up in my designated upload folder. Next thing is to go global, so I moved the app to an FTP server and... I don't know how to start it. I can't go

node server.js

like I do on my PC in cmd, can I? I open my index page but when I upload something I get: Server responded with 0 code. Just like when I open my index.html without starting the node app trough cmd on my PC. I'm a front-end guy and I don't know almost anything about servers and I've searched quite a bit around the internet, but to little avail.

Answer 1

Before a node app can run on a server you need to make sure that:

1. Node is installed
2. npm install has successfully run / or all dependencies must be transferred to the app directory in the right place
3. The port of the node server should be reachable, so the routing must be set up correctly.

Also, you can't start a program from an ftp prompt usually.

Answer 2

One fairly quick way to get this set up would be to sign up for a virtual server on Amazon using their EC2 server instances. Just choose the basic instance (whichever one is free for the first year) and then install Node and run npm install on your root directory once you have uploaded the files. Also if you are going to want this site accessible with your own domain you will have to set up an elastic IP address also available via Amazon (AWS). Furthermore if you want to have your url accessable via the standard port 80 (meanning that you don't have to type your url:[port number]/path then you might want to look into setting up a reverse proxy using something like nginx.

I know this sounds like a lot and i won't lie to you this is kind of complicated but there is a lot more to getting a node application up an running that you might expect.