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Deploying Node.js to AWS Elastic Beanstalk step by step

March 26, 2019

This will talk through the installation and possible pitfalls when deploying node.js applications on AWS Elastic Beanstalk service. While the documentation found on the AWS site is good it skips over some basics to get an application running. The application example is express app, that renders the current Billboard Top 100. Find the code here at Github.

Install AWS CLI and AWS EB CLI

The AWS CLI will let you configure your security credentials to allow access to your AWS account. The EB CLI is a far better tool for deployment on AWS Elastic Beanstalk itself, otherwise you are left uploading zip files with your source code. Since the installation of both these packages is covered well on AWS Docs it is best to simply follow those.

EB CLI Commands

The follow are the commands you will need to deploy your node application to AWS Elastic Beanstalk. I assume that you have successfully configured your AWS CLI by running aws configure. Note: AWS Elastic Beanstalk will always deploy your latest git commit.

  • Create your application, run git init and git add . and git commit -m "hello aws eb" your files.
  • By default AWS Elastic Beanstalk will try to execute your node application by trying app.js, then server.js, then “npm start” in that order. Here I defined "start": "node app" in package.json
  • AWS Elastic Beanstalk uses 8081 to connect so be sure to define your ports as const port = process.env.PORT || 8081; in your application.

  • Run eb init to create your application.

    • You will select the region for your app, define the app, create a name and pick that you are using node.js. It is ok to pick all defaults here. AWS Elastic Beanstalk will add a .elasticbeanstalk directory with a config.yml add it to your .gitignore

  • Run eb create to create an environment for your app.

    • At this stage you will define the environment name, DNS CNAME and the load balancer type. It is ok to pick all defaults expect Use CodeCommit since this is AWS Private Git repos. This step takes ~5 minutes.
  • You are ready to deploy. Run eb deploy
  • Once complete check the status of your application via eb status
  • You can open your application by running eb open
  • If you need the console run eb console which will take you directly to Elastic Beanstalk console page.
  • If anything is wrong check the log via eb logs

Common Issues

  • Some node.js packages might fail to install on AWS EB because of a permissions issue. Add a .npmrc file and add unsafe-perm=true this is especially common for any dependecy that needs to compile from source and runs node-gyp process.
  • If you are using a specific version of node.js it might be good to define the same version in the AWS EB Console under Modify software
Farhad Agzamov

Written by Farhad Agzamov who lives and works in London building things. You can follow him on Twitter and check out his github here