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Node.js

The OpenLiteSpeed Node.js One-Click app automatically installs performance web server OpenLiteSpeed, and Node.js. This image tends to be more than 4 times faster than Node.js with Nginx! OpenLiteSpeed features easy setup for SSL and RewriteRules. OLS is flexible and also supports Python and Ruby apps, as well as CMSs like WordPress.

Quick Start

Step 1

Use the "OpenLiteSpeed Node.js 1-Click app" to create a Droplet with any plan you want. Click here to create an account and get a $100 Digital Ocean credit.

Use the "OpenLiteSpeed Node.js app" to create a server with any plan you want. Click here to create an account and get a $100 Vultr credit.

Use the "Deploy OpenLiteSpeed Node.js" to create a server with any plan you want. Click here to create an account

  1. Log into the Google Cloud Platform and click Launch a VM instance on Compute Engine.
     gcp nodejs 1
Method 1. Through Subscribe
  1. Subscribe to Node.js
  2. Click Continue to Launch and Launch
Method 2. Through EC2 console
  1. Open the Amazon EC2 console
  2. Locate the product by searching for "Node.js With OpenLiteSpeed" from AWS Marketplace
  3. Click Select,Continue,Preview and launch (the default is the most recent version)
  1. Log into the Azure Portal and click Image Link.
  2. Click the GET IT NOW and Create buttons
  3. Choose any server plan you'd like to use, and create the server

Use the "OpenLiteSpeed Node.js" from Marketplace to create an ECS instance with any plan you want.

  1. Log into hPanel
  2. Navigate to the Operating System page from the sidebar
  3. On the Change Your Operating System section, select OS with Control Panel and choose the Node.js/OpenLiteSpeed template.

Use the "Deploy OpenLiteSpeed Node.js" to create a server with any plan you want. Click here to create an account

Step 2

From a terminal on your local computer, connect to the server as root, like so:

ssh root@use_your_server_ip
ssh username@use_your_server_ip

# Instead of using "username" to SSH with, you can find the right username here: 
# Google Cloud Platform > Project > Compute Engine > Metadata > SSH Keys > Username
ssh ubuntu@use_your_server_ip
ssh azureuser@use_your_server_ip

Be sure to substitute the server’s public IP address for use_your_server_ip. You can also use Cloud Console if the platform is supported.

Step 3

An interactive script that runs will prompt you for your domain or subdomain:

Please input a valid domain:
Please verify it is correct. [y/N]

Enter your root domain only. The system will automatically add the www subdomain as well.

Note

You can press CTRL+C and continue to SSH, but the prompt will open again the next time you log in. It will continue to do so until you finish the whole setup.

If your domain is already pointed to this server, you will have the option of automatically applying Let's Encrypt SSL. Enter y and your email address to complete the process:

Do you wish to issue a Let's encrypt certificate for this domain? [y/N]
Please enter your E-mail:
Please verify it is correct: [y/N]

Once finished, you should see Certificate has been successfully installed...

You can force HTTPS rules to be applied:

Do you wish to force HTTPS rewrite rule for this domain? [y/N]

Complete the process by pressing Y:

Do you wish to update the system which include the web server? [Y/n]

You should not be prompted to initiate this setup again.

Step 4

Visit the default script by entering http://Server_IP on your browser and you should see Hello World from OpenLiteSpeed Node.js.

Start editing the Node.js file here

vim /usr/local/lsws/Example/html/node/app.js

Update system software.

sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade -y

Your system is installed and ready to use!

Components

The OpenLiteSpeed Node.js 1-Click Droplet installs several packages and performs other actions on your system.

Package Installation

Component Version
Linux Ubuntu 22.04
OpenLiteSpeed Latest from LiteSpeedtech Repo
Node.js Latest from APT
NPM Latest from APT
Certbot Latest from Certbot’s PPA

Other Actions

  • Enables the UFW firewall to allow only SSH (port 22), HTTP (port 80) and HTTPS (port 443) access.

Benchmark Comparison

Use the following command to test from a 4-CPU plan server(ab) to a 4-CPU plan server(DOMAIN)

ab -n 100000 -k -H "Accept-Encoding: gzip,deflate" -c 100 http://DOMAIN/

Requests per Second (The larger the number, the better)

Nginx+PM2 Openlitespeed
2600 12000

How to Access the Installed Software

Web Server Control Panel Access

Get the WebAdmin admin password:

cat .litespeed_password
cat /home/ubuntu/.litespeed_password
cat /home/ubuntu/.litespeed_password

Visit https://use_your_droplet_ip:7080 to access WebAdmin in a browser.

By default, WebAdmin uses port 7080. To allow access to 7080 from your IP(e.g. 1.2.3.4):

ufw allow from 1.2.3.4 to any port 7080
You can also allow all IPs access to port 7080:
ufw allow 7080

wpapp 6

We suggest turning this port off once you've finished setup:

ufw delete allow 7080

Optional Setup

Enable HTTPS

Setting up an SSL certificate enables HTTPS on the web server, which secures the traffic between the server and the clients connecting to it. Certbot is a free and automated way to set up SSL certificates on a server.

Step 1. Register Domain

To use Certbot, you’ll need a registered domain name and DNS records:

  • An A record from the domain (e.g., example.com) to the server’s IP address

  • An A record from the domain prefaced with www (e.g., www.example.com) to the server’s IP address.

Step 2. Add Domain to Listener

Navigate to OpenLiteSpeed WebAdmin Console > Listeners, and add Your Domain to HTTP/HTTPS.

listener 1

Step 3. Certbot

Once the DNS records are set up, you can generate the SSL certificate. Be sure to substitute the correct domain name in the following command:

certbot certonly --webroot -w /var/www/html/ -d example.com -d www.example.com
If certificate verification is a success, you should find your certificate files stored in /etc/letsencrypt/

Step 4. Set SSL for HTTPS

wpapp 7

Navigate to OpenLiteSpeed WebAdmin Console > Listeners > SSL, and edit the following three items:

  • Private Key File = /etc/letsencrypt/live/example.com/privkey.pem
  • Certificate File = /etc/letsencrypt/live/example.com/fullchain.pem
  • Chained Certificate = Yes

Save and perform a Graceful Restart.

Now your server should support TLS1.1, TLS 1.2, and TLS 1.3.

Step 5. Redirect HTTP to HTTPS

wpapp 8

HTTPS traffic on port 443 is already allowed through the firewall. After you set up HTTPS, you can optionally rewrite all HTTP traffic to HTTPS.

Add the following rules to OpenLiteSpeed WebAdmin Console > Virtual Hosts > Rewrite > Rewrite Rules

RewriteCond %{SERVER_PORT} 80
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ https://example.com/$1 [R,L]

Method for Uploading Files

You can serve files from the web server by adding them to the web root using SFTP or other tools.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do I Reset my Web Server WebAdmin Password?

If you forget your password, you may run the following command to reset it:

/usr/local/lsws/admin/misc/admpass.sh

It will ask for the WebAdmin username, which should be admin. Then, enter your new password.

How do I Create Additional Virtual Hosts?

This method will automatically set up Listener/VirtualHost/Force SSL/Let's Encrypt/WordPress.

Interactive mode

wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/litespeedtech/ls-cloud-image/master/Setup/vhsetup.sh
chmod +x vhsetup.sh
bash vhsetup.sh
Or just run the script without downloading it:
/bin/bash <( curl -sk https://raw.githubusercontent.com/litespeedtech/ls-cloud-image/master/Setup/vhsetup.sh )

CLI mode

wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/litespeedtech/ls-cloud-image/master/Setup/vhsetup.sh
chmod +x vhsetup.sh
bash vhsetup.sh -d www.example.com -le admin@example.com -f -w
Or just run the script without downloading it:
/bin/bash <( curl -sk https://raw.githubusercontent.com/litespeedtech/ls-cloud-image/master/Setup/vhsetup.sh ) -d www.example.com -le admin@example.com -f -w

  • Please be sure that your domain is already pointing to the server when using -le YOUR_EMAIL

  • Please be sure that your environment has php/sql service/sql root password when using -w

By default, OpenLiteSpeed has an example virtual host already created. You can create more virtual hosts if you like. See Create Virtual Hosts on OpenLiteSpeed.

How do I upgrade OpenLiteSpeed to latest stable version?

OpenLiteSpeed was installed from the LiteSpeed repository, so you can simply use the system update to update OpenLiteSpeed to the latest stable version.

$ sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade openlitespeed -y

How do I Create Additional Apps by Context?

How Does Certbot's Auto Renew Script Work?

The image comes with automatic certificate renewal by default in /etc/cron.d/certbot. An example of the cron job is:

0 */12 * * * root test -x /usr/bin/certbot -a \! -d /run/systemd/system && perl -e 'sleep int(rand(43200))' && certbot -q renew

Once you finish the Let's Encrypt apply by prompt script, it will auto apply the server hook to the cronjob rule. An example of the cron job is:

0 */12 * * * root test -x /usr/bin/certbot -a \! -d /run/systemd/system && perl -e 'sleep int(rand(43200))' && certbot -q renew --deploy-hook "systemctl restart lsws"

This cron job is triggered twice every day to renew the certificate. The certbot -q renew command will check if the certificate is expiring in the next 30 days. If it is, then certbot will auto renew the certificate quietly without generating output, and auto restart the web server by hook. If the certificate is not expiring, then no action will be performed. When renewing the certificate, the same information provided during certificate creation (such as email address, domain name, web server root path etc.) will be used.

What if the Certbot Deploy Hook is not Triggered?

If your certificate renewal is successful, but for some reason the deploy hook is not being triggered, you can run the following command. This will insert a restart lsws command into the Certbot cronjobs.

echo '0 0 * * 3 root systemctl restart lsws' | sudo tee -a /etc/cron.d/certbot > /dev/null

This particular example triggers a web server restart every Wednesday at Midnight. You can modify the 0 0 * * 3 part of the command to adjust the schedule, if needed.

How do I Change the Node.js Startup File?

If you want to change the default startup file name from app.js to node.js, just update the Context and set Startup File = node.js.

How do I Restart Node.JS Process?

OpenLiteSpeed comes with Node.JS in detached mode by default, so you will need to restart Node.JS with the following command to make any new settings take effect:

kill -9 $(pgrep -f 'lsnode')

How do I upgrade Node.js to latest stable version

Install Node.js by using n module

sudo n stable
     install : node-vX.X.X
       mkdir : /usr/local/n/versions/node/X.X.X
       fetch : https://nodejs.org/dist/vX.X.X/node-vX.X.X-linux-x64.tar.gz
################################################################################## 100.0%
   installed : vX.X.X
Setup binary link
ln -sf /usr/local/n/versions/node/X.X.X/bin/node /usr/bin/node

How do I set up a Ghost Blog?

In this example, we are going to install the Ghost blog on default document root, /usr/local/lsws/Example/html/demo

Create new user

Ghost CLI does not allow running as root, so we will need to create a user for Ghost CLI to run as and add them to the sudoers file.

adduser demouser
usermod -aG sudo demouser

Set virtual hosts config

Navigate to WebAdmin > Virtual Hosts > Example > Basic > Security, add demouser to both the suEXEC User and suEXEC Group fields.

Go to Virtual Hosts > Example > Context, edit the existing app server / context or click the Add button if it doesn't exist, then update with the following settings:

URI: / Location: /var/www/html/blog Binary Path: /usr/bin/node Application Type: Node Startup File: current/index.js Run-time Mode: Production

Install MySQL

sudo apt install mysql-server
sudo mysql
# Now update your user with this command
# Replace 'password' with your password, but keep the quote marks!
ALTER USER 'root'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED WITH mysql_native_password BY 'password';
quit

Install Ghost CLI

npm install -g ghost-cli@latest

Create a directory

Log in as the user:

su - demouser

Create the blog folder:

sudo mkdir -p /var/www/html/blog

Make sure demouser has permission to access the document root folder:

sudo chown -R demouser:demouser /var/www/html/blog/
sudo chmod 775 /var/www/html/blog/
Go to document root:
cd /var/www/html/blog

Run the install process

Ghost CLI will do most of the install for you. It will download the latest version and get it set up. So first let’s install Ghost by running the following:

ghost install local
Ghost was installed successfully! To complete setup of your publication, visit:

    http://localhost:2368/ghost/

Next, let’s set it up by running the following:

ghost setup --no-setup-nginx --no-setup-systemd --no-setup-ssl --no-start
Answer the installation questions:
? Enter your blog URL: http://example.com
? Enter your MySQL hostname: localhost
? Enter your MySQL username: root
? Enter your MySQL password: [hidden]
? Enter your Ghost database name: ghost_blog

Ghost was installed successfully! To complete setup of your publication, visit:

    http://example.com/ghost/
Be sure to use your login for MySQL username/password.

Restart web server:

systemctl restart lsws

Make sure your site is working

Navigate over to your browser and visit your site http://example.com/. You should see the Ghost welcome screen:

ghost1

You can accesshttp://example.com/ghost for the backend page.

That’s it!

How to cache the site with LSCache Rules

Visit LSCache Without a Plugin doc

We can put following example rules to the OLS Web Admin > Virtual Hosts > Context > App Server context > Rewrite Rules:

CacheLookup on
RewriteCond %{ORG_REQ_URI} !/ghost/
RewriteRule .* - [E=cache-control:max-age=120]

And with that, you have just enabled caching on your site. All pages that are not in the ghost subdirectory, will be cached publicly for two minutes.

How do I Set up Strapi?

First, update the system packages, and then install some essential packages:

apt update && apt upgrade -y
apt install build-essential node-pre-gyp -y

Create a new project

Use npx to create a strapi app on the default document root:

cd /usr/local/lsws/Example/html/
npx create-strapi-app strapi --quickstart
You should see something like this:
 Project information

┌────────────────────┬──────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ Time               │ Tue Jan 26 2021 03:18:41 GMT+0000 (Coordinated … │
│ Launched in        │ 5677 ms                                          │
│ Environment        │ development                                      │
│ Process PID        │ 79279                                            │
│ Version            │ 3.4.4 (node v12.20.1)                            │
│ Edition            │ Community                                        │
└────────────────────┴──────────────────────────────────────────────────┘

 Actions available

One more thing...
Create your first administrator 💻 by going to the administration panel at:

┌─────────────────────────────┐
│ http://localhost:1337/admin │
└─────────────────────────────┘

Deploy Strapi

You'll be installing Strapi packages into the strapi app folder:

cd strapi

In order to avoid a known bug, edit package.json and specify the sqlite3 version instead of the latest:

    "sqlite3": "5.0.0"

Install packages with npm:

npm install
Launch the server and run it with production settings:
NODE_ENV=production npm run build
npm run start

If it is a success, you should see something like this:

To manage your project 🚀, go to the administration panel at:
http://localhost:1337/admin

To access the server ⚡️, go to:
http://localhost:1337

Serve Strapi via OpenLiteSpeed

In order to run on node instead of npm run start, you will need some JavaScript. Execute the following to add a start.js script to the Strapi app folder:

cat >> start.js <<END
const strapi = require('strapi');
strapi().start();
END

Navigate to the WebAdmin Console at port 7080 and go to Virtual Hosts > Example > Context and Add/Edit the / App Server context with the following entries:

  • URI = /
  • Location = /usr/local/lsws/Example/html/strapi/
  • Binary Path = /usr/bin/node
  • Application Type = Node
  • Startup File = start.js

Click the Save button, and restart the web server.

Verify

To make sure the site is working, visit your site http://example.com/ from the browser. You should see the Strapi welcome screen:

strapi1

and http://example.com/admin for admin access page

strapi2

How do I use an Express app on this image?

Setting up an Express app is easy. First, install the Express.js module:

npm install express --save

Then, change your startup file (app.js) from a Node.js program to an Express JS program:

const express = require('express')
const app = express()
const port = 3000

app.get('/', (req, res) => res.send('Hello World from OpenLitespeed Express JS!'))

app.listen(port, () => console.log(`Example app listening on port ${port}!`))

Finally, restart OpenLiteSpeed:

service lsws restart

And you're done!

How do I upgrade to LiteSpeed Enterprise?

This script will:

  1. Generate LiteSpeed Enterprise config file from OpenLiteSpeed config

  2. Backup OpenLiteSpeed config and uninstall OpenLiteSpeed

  3. Install LiteSpeed and load the config file

/bin/bash <( curl -sk https://raw.githubusercontent.com/litespeedtech/ls-cloud-image/master/Setup/ols2ent-v2.sh )

Note

We recommend you to run and test this script on a test server first. Get help by using the -H parameter for more information including how to revert back to OpenLiteSpeed if needed.

API Creation

In addition to creating a Droplet from the Openlitespeed Node.js 1-Click application using the control panel, you can also use the DigitalOcean API.

The following example creates an Openlitespeed Node.js 20.04 Droplet called “My-Droplet” in the NYC3 datacenter, with 1 GB RAM:

curl -X POST "https://api.digitalocean.com/v2/droplets" \
    -d'{"name":"My-Droplet","region":"nyc3","size":"s-1vcpu-1gb","image":"litespeedtechnol-openlitespeedrai-20-04"}' \
    -H "Authorization: Bearer $TOKEN" \
    -H "Content-Type: application/json"

In addition to creating an instance from the Node.js using the AWS Management Console, you can also use the AWS Command Line Interface.

The following example creates an t2.micro Instance with Node.js AMI:

aws ec2 run-instances --image-id ami-04ded8321f23a57ad \
                        --subnet-id subnet-XXXXXXX \
                        --security-group-ids sg-XXXXXXXXXXXXXX \
                        --count 1 \
                        --instance-type t2.micro \
                        --key-name XXXXXX \
                        --query "Instances[0].InstanceId"
Please replace XXX to your own settings.

Get the exact name of the Node.js image from LiteSpeed's project, gc-image-pub:

gcloud compute images list --project=gc-image-pub --filter="name ~ 'openlitespeed nodejs'"

Create an instance, replacing INSTANCE_NAME with the name of your choice, and IMAGE_NAME with the name obtained from the previous command:

gcloud compute instances create INSTANCE_NAME --image-project=gc-image-pub --image=IMAGE_NAME

The first time you launch, you may need to accept the marketplace terms using the following command:

Get-AzureRmMarketplaceTerms \
    -Publisher "litespeedtechnologies" \
    -Product "openlitespeed-nodejs" \
    -Name "openlitespeed-nodejs" \
    | Set-AzureRmMarketplaceTerms -Accept
Find the release version you prefer:
az vm image list \
    --location westus \
    --publisher litespeedtechnologies \
    --offer openlitespeed-nodejs \
    --all \
    --output table
Launch VM from that image:
az vm create \
    --resource-group your-group \
    --image litespeedtechnologies:openlitespeed-nodejs:nodejs:3.0.2 \
    --name myVM \
    --admin-username azure

Feel free to replace resource-group, image version, name, admin name, --generate-ssh-keys and more options with your own preferences.


Last update: October 24, 2023