QuickStart: Deploy a Node.js application to Elastic Beanstalk

This QuickStart tutorial walks you through the process of creating a Node.js application and deploying it to an AWS Elastic Beanstalk environment.

Your AWS account

If you're not already an AWS customer, you need to create an AWS account. Signing up enables you to access Elastic Beanstalk and other AWS services that you need.

If you already have an AWS account, you can move on to Prerequisites.

Prerequisites

To follow the procedures in this guide, you will need a command line terminal or shell to run commands. Commands are shown in listings preceded by a prompt symbol ($) and the name of the current directory, when appropriate.

~/eb-project$ this is a command
this is output

On Linux and macOS, you can use your preferred shell and package manager. On Windows you can install the Windows Subsystem for Linux to get a Windows-integrated version of Ubuntu and Bash.

EB CLI

This tutorial uses the Elastic Beanstalk Command Line Interface (EB CLI). For details on installing and configuring the EB CLI, see Install the Elastic Beanstalk Command Line Interface and Configure the EB CLI.

Node.js

Install Node.js on your local machine by following How to install Node.js on the Node.js website.

Verify your Node.js installation by running the following command.

~$ node -v

Step 1: Create a Node.js application

Create a project directory.

~$ mkdir eb-nodejs
~$ cd eb-nodejs

Next, create an application that you'll deploy using Elastic Beanstalk. We'll create a "Hello World" RESTful web service.

const http = require('node:http');

const hostname = '127.0.0.1';
const port = 8080;

const server = http.createServer((req, res) => {
  res.statusCode = 200;
  res.setHeader('Content-Type', 'text/plain');
  res.end('Hello Elastic Beanstalk!\n');
});

server.listen(port, hostname, () => {
  console.log(`Server running at http://${hostname}:${port}/`);
});

This application opens a listener on port 8080. Elastic Beanstalk forwards requests to your application on port 8080 by default for Node.js.

Step 2: Run your application locally

Run the following command to run your application locally.

~/eb-nodejs$ node server.js

You should see the following text.

Server running at http://127.0.0.1:8080/

Enter the URL address http://127.0.0.1:8080/ in your web browser. The browser should display “Hello Elastic Beanstalk!”.

Step 3: Deploy your Node.js application with the EB CLI

Run the following commands to create an Elastic Beanstalk environment for this application.

Step 4: Run your application on Elastic Beanstalk

When the process to create your environment completes, open your website with eb open.

~/eb-nodejs$ eb open

Congratulations! You've deployed a Node.js application with Elastic Beanstalk! This opens a browser window using the domain name created for your application.

Step 5: Clean up

You can terminate your environment when you finish working with your application. Elastic Beanstalk terminates all AWS resources associated with your environment.

To terminate your Elastic Beanstalk environment with the EB CLI run the following command.

~/eb-nodejs$ eb terminate

AWS resources for your application

You just created a single instance application. It serves as a straightforward sample application with a single EC2 instance, so it doesn't require load balancing or auto scaling. For single instance applications Elastic Beanstalk creates the following AWS resources:

Elastic Beanstalk manages all of these resources. When you terminate your environment, Elastic Beanstalk terminates all the resources that it contains.

Next steps

After you have an environment running an application, you can deploy a new version of the application or a different application at any time. Deploying a new application version is very quick because it doesn't require provisioning or restarting EC2 instances. You can also explore your new environment using the Elastic Beanstalk console. For detailed steps, see Explore your environment in the Getting started chapter of this guide.

After you deploy a sample application or two and are ready to start developing and running Node.js applications locally, see Setting up your Node.js development environment for Elastic Beanstalk.

Deploy with the Elastic Beanstalk console

You can also use the Elastic Beanstalk console to launch the sample application. For detailed steps, see Create an example application in the Getting started chapter of this guide.