1. Pre-requisites

VPS, ideally Ubuntu LTS distribution (I recommend OVH)
Domain DNS A records pointing to your server IP address
Next.js (or any other Node.js app) github repo

2. Initial set-up on VPS

Access your VPS through SSH
```
ssh root@vps_ip
```
You should have received an e-mail from VPS provider with login details
Create new user with admin privileges
exit from the root account
SSH with your new user
```
ssh new_user@vps_ip
```
Generate SSH token for Github
Add it to your GitHub account settings

a. You can use cat ~/.ssh/id_ed25519.pub command to copy the SSH public key from VPS

3. Front-end app and PM2 set-up

Create apps folder with
```
cd ~ && mkdir apps && cd apps
```
Install NVM, then install Node.js
```
nvm install node
```
Install PM2
```
npm install pm2@latest -g
```

Clone your Next.js repo

git clone git@github.com:username/repo.git

a. cd into it then

npm install && npm run build

Create PM2 ecosystem config in ~/apps with

pm2 ecosystem
rm ecosystem.config.js
touch ecosystem.config.js

Open ecosystem file

nano ecosystem.config.js

and populate it with:

module.exports = {
  apps: [
    {
      name: 'next',
      cwd: '/home/YOUR_VPS_USERNAME/apps/YOUR_REPO_NAME/',
      script: 'npm',
      args: 'start',
      exec_interpreter: '/home/YOUR_VPS_USERNAME/.nvm/versions/node/NODE_VERSION/bin/node',
      env: {
        // here you can provide ENV variables
        NEXT_PUBLIC_TEST: 'NEXT_PUBLIC_TEST',
      },
    },
  ],
};

remember to change YOUR_VPS_USERNAME, YOUR_REPO_NAME, NODE_VERSION (check with node -v)

Start PM2 ecosystem
```
pm2 start ecosystem.config.js
```
Check if your app is running
```
curl http://localhost:3000
```
If not, then use
```
pm2 logs --lines=9000
```
to debug. Fix errors, then
```
pm2 kill && pm2 flush
```
to kill all processess and delete the the old logs. Then start ecosystem again
```
pm2 start ecosystem.config.js
```
Configure PM2 to restart your apps automatically and let it start on system reboot. First run
```
pm2 startup systemd
```
and then run the command from the output of above command
Save your PM2 environment
```
pm2 save
```
Start the PM2 service
```
sudo systemctl start pm2-YOUR_USERNAME
```
and reboot the system
```
sudo reboot
```
Then connect to VPS through SSH again
Run
```
pm2 monit
```
profit 🎉
Useful PM2 commands

a. pm2 list - lists the apps managed by PM2

b. pm2 restart app_name - restarts the app

c. pm2 info app_name - gets info about app

d. pm2 monit - process monitor displaying resources usage and their statuses

Nginx set-up

Install Nginx

sudo apt update && sudo apt install nginx

Configure firewall

a. Check available apps

sudo ufw app list

b. Add Nginx HTTP app

sudo ufw allow 'Nginx HTTP'

c. Verify firewall status

sudo ufw status

d. Check if Nginx service is running

systemctl status nginx

e. Open your site VPS address in the browser. You can check the IP addres via

curl -4 icanhazip.com

You should see the default Nginx page 🎉

f. Create configuration file for Nginx site

sudo nano /etc/nginx/sites-available/YOUR_DOMAIN.com

with:

server {
listen 80;
listen [::]:80;

     server_name YOUR_DOMAIN.COM www.YOUR_DOMAIN.COM;

     location / {
         proxy_pass http://localhost:3000;
         proxy_http_version 1.1;
         proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-Host $host;
         proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-Server $host;
         proxy_set_header X-Real-IP $remote_addr;
         proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-For $proxy_add_x_forwarded_for;
         proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-Proto $scheme;
         proxy_set_header Upgrade $http_upgrade;
         proxy_set_header Connection "Upgrade";
         proxy_set_header Host $http_host;
         proxy_pass_request_headers on;
     }

}

remember to change YOUR_DOMAIN.com

Create a symlink from sites-available to sites-enabled using

sudo ln -s /etc/nginx/sites-available/YOUR_DOMAIN.com /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/

Make sure there are no errors in Nginx config
```
sudo nginx -t
```
Configure Nginx start up on system reboot
```
sudo systemctl enable nginx
```

Open Nginx config file

sudo nano /etc/nginx/nginx.conf

and uncomment the line:

server_names_hash_bucket_size 64;

Restart Nginx
```
sudo systemctl restart nginx
```
and visit http://YOUR_DOMAIN.com 🎉

Secure your Nginx site with Let's Encrypt using Certbot

Update firewall settings to allow only HTTPS

sudo ufw allow 'Nginx Full'
sudo ufw delete allow 'Nginx HTTP'

Install Certbot

sudo snap install core
sudo snap refresh core
sudo snap install --classic certbot

Ensure Certbot installed correctly

sudo ln -s /snap/bin/certbot /usr/bin/certbot

Obtain certificate

sudo certbot --nginx -d YOUR_DOMAIN.com -d www.YOUR_DOMAIN.com

Check renewal process status
```
sudo systemctl status certbot.timer
```
Manualy test the renewal dry-run
```
sudo certbot renew --dry-run
```
Visit https://YOUR_DOMAIN.com 🎉

Resources

todo

add directus app in the next steps to ecosystem, add ssl


{
name: 'cms',
cwd: '~/apps/cms/',
script: 'npm',
args: 'start',
exec_interpreter: '~/.nvm/versions/node/NODE_VERSION/bin/node',
},