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Hello SSL App

This project is example code for adding an SSL/TLS front end to any NodeJS / Express app.

It uses the Let's Encrypt (LE) service to automatically register free SSL certs! The example includes a Dockerfile that has also been configured and tested to work with the SE service.

NOTE: This code will register you with the Let's Encrypt online service so make sure you've checked their terms and conditions.

Configuration

You'll probably want to add this ssl section into your existing app configuration:

config.js

module.exports = {
  ssl: {
    enabled: process.env.SSL_ENABLED === 'true',
    redirect: true,             // Redirect non-SSL requests to SSL port.
    email: process.env.SSL_EMAIL, // Contact email for your Let's Encrypt registration.
    domains: process.env.SSL_DOMAINS.split(','), // SSL Domain names
    prod: process.env.SSL_PROD === 'true', // if false, provisions (untrusted) SSL certs that avoid 5 certs/week/domain limit.
    plainPorts: [8080],         // Map to 80
    tlsPorts: [8443, 8001],     // Map to 443 and 5001
    certsDir: '/etc/certs'      // Docker volume if certs are persisted.
    // certsDir: require('os').homedir() + '/.ssl_certs' // Use if developing on OSX/Linux
  }
};

Docker

If you plan to use Docker to deploy your Node app, then these notes might be useful. I've included a basic Dockerfile that can be used to run your Node app.

Ports

In general you'd want to run you node app as a non-root process, so I've configured the ports to be > 1024 since lower numbered ports are reserved for root processes. I'm then using Docker to map the app container ports 8080 -> 80, 8443 -> 443 and 8001 -> 5001 on the Docker host.

/etc/certs - SSL Ceritificate folder

Best practice is to use docker-compose to create and share a "data only container" or a "Docker volume" to persist the SSL certificates. However, to use a single Dockerfile I've used these commands to create the a /etc/certs directory on the Docker host (or VM) so it can be mounted as a volume by the container. If you're not using a dedicated Docker VM as your host, you might prefer to configure certDir to be require('os').homedir() + '/.ssl_certs' .

Create volume mount point for certs with correct permissions:

$ docker-machine ssh $HOST 'sudo mkdir -p /etc/certs; sudo chown nobody:nogroup /etc/certs; sudo chmod 755 /etc/certs;'

The Production LE service will only permit up to 5 certificates to be registered per week per domain. So when testing they recommend using their Staging LE service.

To make a backup copy of the SSL certs:

$ docker-machine scp $HOST:/etc/certs $PWD/certs

See Also

As your app scales, you may eventually want to use a nginx front end built with LE support: