
<p>
  This blog shows how to redirect from HTTP to HTTPS at Amazon Linux EC2
  Instance. The Example below is a simple Express.js App running under Nginx
  with PM2.
</p>
<h2>Setup EC2 Instance</h2>
<p>
  Here, we'd like to set up an EC2 Instance, first, you need to have an AWS
  account. Once you have AWS account, you can go to EC2 to set up the instance.
</p>
<p>Click Launch Instance at EC2 Page.</p>
<p>Select Amazon Linux 2 AMI, since it's eligible for the free tier.</p>
<p>Select t2.micro</p>
<p>
  At the configure instance detail page, leave everything as default, default
  VPC, subnet. Make sure the VPC and subnet is set up the way that have public
  access.&nbsp;
</p>
<p>Click add storage, and leave the default setting.</p>
<p>
  Click and go to configure security group, make sure inbound rule has opened
  port 80, 22, 443, because we'd like web site by access by HTTP and HTTPS and
  able to SSH.&nbsp;
</p>
<p>Create key pair if you don't have one.&nbsp;</p>
<p>
  Once the EC2 Linux Instance setup is finished, SSH into the instance.&nbsp;
</p>
<h2>Setup Sample Express.js App</h2>
<p>Once you SSH into the Linux, to make everything easier, just run this.</p>
<pre class="language-javascript"><code>sudo su</code></pre>
<h3>Install Node.js</h3>
<p>Run the following command to install node.js at Amazon Linux.</p>
<pre
  class="language-markup"
><code>curl -fsSL https://rpm.nodesource.com/setup_lts.x | sudo bash -
yum -y install nodejs</code></pre>
<h3>Create Simple Express.js App</h3>
<p>
  Following command create the folder and start npm init and install express,
  also create file server.js.
</p>
<pre class="language-markup"><code>mkdir my-app &amp;&amp; cd my-app
npm init -y
npm install express
nano server.js
</code></pre>
<p>
  Now, add the following code to the server.js, once you run
  <strong>node server.js</strong>, you start express web server running with
  port 3000.&nbsp;
</p>
<pre class="language-markup"><code>const express = require('express');
const app = express();
const port = 3000;

app.get('/', (req, res) =&gt; {
res.send('yo');
});

app.listen(port, () =&gt; {
console.info('app start');
});</code></pre>
<h3>PM2 to keep Node.js running</h3>
<p>
  Now, you can use PM2 to keep the node.js app running, by following the
  command.
</p>
<p>
  Once you installed PM2 and start, you can try <strong>curl </strong
  ><a href=","><strong>http://localhost:3000</strong>,</a> you should be able to
  see the response from the home route.&nbsp;
</p>
<pre class="language-markup"><code>npm i -g pm2@2.4.3
pm2 start server.js</code></pre>
<h3>Install Nginx at Amazon Linux</h3>
<p>
  The following command will install Nginx to Amazon Linux instance, once setup
  is finished we'll update the config to handler HTTP to HTTPS redirect.
</p>
<pre
  class="language-markup"
><code>sudo amazon-linux-extras install nginx1</code></pre>
<p>The Nginx config should exist at /etc/nginx/nginx.conf</p>
<pre class="language-markup"><code>cd /etc/nginx</code></pre>
<p>open nginx.conf file.</p>
<pre class="language-markup"><code>nano nginx.conf</code></pre>
<p>
  First, we'll set up Nginx to reverse proxy to the express.js, which is running
  port 3000. You can notice before the change if you hit the EC2 public IP
  address, you will get the message from chrome "This site can't be reached.."
</p>
<pre class="language-markup"><code>location / {
proxy_pass http://localhost:3000;
}</code></pre>
<h2>restart the nginx service</h2>
<pre class="language-markup"><code>service nginx restart</code></pre>
<h2>Site is Up</h2>
<p>
  Now, if you hit the IP address, you should be able to see the site is up and
  running, cause the Nginx route 80 to the express.js 3000 port.&nbsp;
</p>
<h2>Handler HTTP to HTTPS redirect</h2>
<p>add below code to the nginx.conf for redirect from HTTP to HTTPS.</p>
<pre class="language-markup"><code>    if ($http_x_forwarded_proto = 'http'){
    return 301 https://$host$request_uri;
    }</code></pre>
<p>
  That should be it for redirect your app from HTTP to HTTPS by using Nginx at
  Amazon Linux. If you just run the IP address of the EC2 you probably not see
  it redirect, but the one I had used was, setup classic load balancer before
  EC2, the classic load balancer has HTTPS certificate setup, you should be able
  to get a free one from AWS ACM. Also, I have my route 53 route the domain to
  the classic load balancer, so if I run my domain
  <a href="http://my-domain,">http://my-domain,</a> you should be able to see it
  redirect from <a href="http://my-domain">http://my-domain </a>to
  <a href="https://my-domain">https://my-domain</a>.&nbsp;
</p>
<p>
  Alternatively, you could try to write that code in the code level or if you
  running Application Load Balancer, you can set up a redirect on that as
  well.&nbsp;
</p>


This blog shows how to redirect from HTTP to HTTPS by using Nginx at Amazon Linux EC2 Instance.

Category Nginx

How to Redirect HTTP to HTTPS on Amazon Linux with Node.js