Given an SSL key and certificate, how does one create an HTTPS service?
This question is related to
javascript
node.js
ssl
https
webserver
To enable your app to listen for both http
and https
on ports 80
and 443
respectively, do the following
Create an express app:
var express = require('express');
var app = express();
The app returned by express()
is a JavaScript function. It can be be passed to Node’s HTTP servers as a callback to handle requests. This makes it easy to provide both HTTP and HTTPS versions of your app using the same code base.
You can do so as follows:
var express = require('express');
var https = require('https');
var http = require('http');
var fs = require('fs');
var app = express();
var options = {
key: fs.readFileSync('/path/to/key.pem'),
cert: fs.readFileSync('/path/to/cert.pem')
};
http.createServer(app).listen(80);
https.createServer(options, app).listen(443);
For complete detail see the doc
The above answers are good but with Express and node this will work fine.
Since express create the app for you, I'll skip that here.
var express = require('express')
, fs = require('fs')
, routes = require('./routes');
var privateKey = fs.readFileSync('cert/key.pem').toString();
var certificate = fs.readFileSync('cert/certificate.pem').toString();
// To enable HTTPS
var app = module.exports = express.createServer({key: privateKey, cert: certificate});
Use Let's Encrypt via Greenlock.js
I noticed that none of these answers show that adding a Intermediate Root CA to the chain, here are some zero-config examples to play with to see that:
Snippet:
var options = {
// this is the private key only
key: fs.readFileSync(path.join('certs', 'my-server.key.pem'))
// this must be the fullchain (cert + intermediates)
, cert: fs.readFileSync(path.join('certs', 'my-server.crt.pem'))
// this stuff is generally only for peer certificates
//, ca: [ fs.readFileSync(path.join('certs', 'my-root-ca.crt.pem'))]
//, requestCert: false
};
var server = https.createServer(options);
var app = require('./my-express-or-connect-app').create(server);
server.on('request', app);
server.listen(443, function () {
console.log("Listening on " + server.address().address + ":" + server.address().port);
});
var insecureServer = http.createServer();
server.listen(80, function () {
console.log("Listening on " + server.address().address + ":" + server.address().port);
});
This is one of those things that's often easier if you don't try to do it directly through connect or express, but let the native https
module handle it and then use that to serve you connect / express app.
Also, if you use server.on('request', app)
instead of passing the app when creating the server, it gives you the opportunity to pass the server
instance to some initializer function that creates the connect / express app (if you want to do websockets over ssl on the same server, for example).
You can use also archive this with the Fastify framework:
const { readFileSync } = require('fs')
const Fastify = require('fastify')
const fastify = Fastify({
https: {
key: readFileSync('./test/asset/server.key'),
cert: readFileSync('./test/asset/server.cert')
},
logger: { level: 'debug' }
})
fastify.listen(8080)
(and run openssl req -nodes -new -x509 -keyout server.key -out server.cert
to create the files if you need to write tests)
The Express API doc spells this out pretty clearly.
Additionally this answer gives the steps to create a self-signed certificate.
I have added some comments and a snippet from the Node.js HTTPS documentation:
var express = require('express');
var https = require('https');
var http = require('http');
var fs = require('fs');
// This line is from the Node.js HTTPS documentation.
var options = {
key: fs.readFileSync('test/fixtures/keys/agent2-key.pem'),
cert: fs.readFileSync('test/fixtures/keys/agent2-cert.cert')
};
// Create a service (the app object is just a callback).
var app = express();
// Create an HTTP service.
http.createServer(app).listen(80);
// Create an HTTPS service identical to the HTTP service.
https.createServer(options, app).listen(443);
The minimal setup for an HTTPS server in Node.js would be something like this :
var https = require('https');
var fs = require('fs');
var httpsOptions = {
key: fs.readFileSync('path/to/server-key.pem'),
cert: fs.readFileSync('path/to/server-crt.pem')
};
var app = function (req, res) {
res.writeHead(200);
res.end("hello world\n");
}
https.createServer(httpsOptions, app).listen(4433);
If you also want to support http requests, you need to make just this small modification :
var http = require('http');
var https = require('https');
var fs = require('fs');
var httpsOptions = {
key: fs.readFileSync('path/to/server-key.pem'),
cert: fs.readFileSync('path/to/server-crt.pem')
};
var app = function (req, res) {
res.writeHead(200);
res.end("hello world\n");
}
http.createServer(app).listen(8888);
https.createServer(httpsOptions, app).listen(4433);
If you need it only locally for local development, I've created utility exactly for this task - https://github.com/pie6k/easy-https
import { createHttpsDevServer } from 'easy-https';
async function start() {
const server = await createHttpsDevServer(
async (req, res) => {
res.statusCode = 200;
res.write('ok');
res.end();
},
{
domain: 'my-app.dev',
port: 3000,
subdomains: ['test'], // will add support for test.my-app.dev
openBrowser: true,
},
);
}
start();
It:
Found this question while googling "node https" but the example in the accepted answer is very old - taken from the docs of the current (v0.10) version of node, it should look like this:
var https = require('https');
var fs = require('fs');
var options = {
key: fs.readFileSync('test/fixtures/keys/agent2-key.pem'),
cert: fs.readFileSync('test/fixtures/keys/agent2-cert.pem')
};
https.createServer(options, function (req, res) {
res.writeHead(200);
res.end("hello world\n");
}).listen(8000);
Source: Stackoverflow.com