Node.js

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Node.js is a cross platform, open source, javascript server environment.

This guide will walk through installing Node.js behind nginx and using Monit to keep Node instances alive. Since Node.js is a single-process application, the goal is to launch multiple instances of the application and load balance using nginx.

Installation

USE flags

USE flags for net-libs/nodejs A JavaScript runtime built on Chrome's V8 JavaScript engine

`corepack`	Enable the experimental corepack package management tool
`debug`	Enable extra debug codepaths, like asserts and extra output. If you want to get meaningful backtraces see https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Project:Quality_Assurance/Backtraces
`doc`	Add extra documentation (API, Javadoc, etc). It is recommended to enable per package instead of globally
`icu`	Enable ICU (Internationalization Components for Unicode) support, using dev-libs/icu
`inspector`	Enable V8 inspector
`lto`	Build with link-time optimisation
`npm`	Enable NPM package manager
`pax-kernel`	Enable building under a PaX enabled kernel
`snapshot`	Enable snapshot creation for faster startup
`ssl`	Add support for SSL/TLS connections (Secure Socket Layer / Transport Layer Security)
`system-icu`	Use system dev-libs/icu instead of the bundled version
`system-ssl`	Use system OpenSSL instead of the bundled one
`test`	Enable dependencies and/or preparations necessary to run tests (usually controlled by FEATURES=test but can be toggled independently)

Data provided by the Gentoo Package Database · Last update: 2023-11-29 05:14 More information about USE flags

npm

Node.js has a USE flag to include npm, the Node.js package manager. npm is necessary to install a Node.js application's dependencies, which are defined in a file named package.json. The USE can be disabled if npm is not necessary locally, or prefer to only install an alternative, for example, sys-apps/yarn.

Web application daemons with nginx and monit

Packages

Node.js typically responds directly to HTTP requests by running a server. Node.js works best with multiple instances running behind a load-balancing gateway, such as nginx.

Use app-admin/monit for spawning Node.js servers.

root #emerge --ask monit nginx nodejs

Configure Monit

FILE /etc/monit.d/my-appAuto restart NodeJS App

check process mysql with pidfile /var/run/my-app/mysqld.pid
    start program = "/bin/bash -c 'rc-service mysql start'"
    stop program  = "/bin/bash -c 'rc-service mysql stop'"

Configure Nginx

FILE /etc/nginx/nginx.confNginx Config

http {
    upstream myapp1 {
        least_conn;
        server srv1.example.com;
        server srv2.example.com;
        server srv3.example.com;
    }
 
    server {
        listen 80;

        location / {
            proxy_pass http://myapp1;
        }
    }
}

Web application with openrc runscript

FILE /etc/init.d/nodejs-serverSample init.d file for a Node.js daemon

#!/sbin/openrc-run
 
user="nobody"
group="nobody"
command="/usr/bin/node"
directory="/opt/${RC_SVCNAME}"
command_args="httpd.js"
command_user="${user}:${group}"
command_background="yes"
pidfile="/run/${RC_SVCNAME}.pid"
output_log="/var/log/${RC_SVCNAME}.log"
error_log="${output_log}"
 
depend() {
	use net
}