Your First Week With Node.js, 2nd Edition

Chapter 11: Configuring NGINX and SSL with Node.js

by Nilson Jacques

NGINX is a high-performance HTTP server as well as a reverse proxy. Unlike traditional servers, NGINX follows an event-driven, asynchronous architecture. As a result, the memory footprint is low and performance is high. If you’re running a Node.js-based web app, you should seriously consider using NGINX as a reverse proxy.

NGINX can be very efficient in serving static assets. For all other requests, it will talk to your Node.js back end and send the response to the client. In this tutorial, we’ll discuss how to configure NGINX to work with Node.js. We’ll also see how to setup SSL in the NGINX server.

Node’s Built-in HTTPS Module

Node also has a built-in HTTPS module and can ...