如何获取在本地主机上运行的node.js应用程序？

Question

I made a node.js chat app using express and socket.io. It runs on localhost and other computers can connect to it on the same network. How could I get it online so people on different networks could still use it?

Here's my package.json just in case it helps:

{
  "name": "Node Chat",
  "version": "1.0.1",
  "description": "Simple chat server",
  "dependencies": {
    "express": "4.10.2",
    "socket.io": "1.2.0"
  }
}

Answer 1

You have to put your app on a computer that can be contacted from the open internet with a public IP address. If you want to be able to contact it with an URL such as http://www.example.com , then that entails the following steps:

1. Finding a server that has a publicly accessible IP address that you can run your app on. Usually, this would be a server at a hosting company that supports node.js apps.

2. Setting up a DNS entry to make your domain and the www prefix point to the proper IP address that contains your sever process.

3. Running your server process in a way that it responds to port 80 requests. At a hosting company, there may be specific rules to follow in order to make port 80 at your domain work the way you want.

You could achieve these steps from a server on your own local network, but that would typically involve a bunch of network configuration to "punch" a hole your local firewall and to route port 80 requests to a specific server on your network (usually using port forwarding) and to allow external requests to reach a given server on your private network and it would involve some DNS configuration to allow a domain name request to match up with the public IP of your private network. For a variety of reasons, this configuration is usually not recommended if this is a home network.

Answer 2

Since you are working with node.js I expect you to have at least some experience with websites in general and that you know that they need to be hosted on a server. You could do this yourself, but since you are asking this question I assume you are not having the equipment to do this. But like mentioned in the comments of your post there are several providers for hosting node apps. Most of them offer limited free services, which will totally do it if you make this app for you and some friends. Here is a short list:

• Heroku
• Modulus
• Microsoft Azure
• Google Cloud Hosting

You can find an extended list here .