Setup a Linux (Ubuntu) VM on Azure to run Node.js with Upstart

Step-by-step guide

Setting up an Azure VM with Ubuntu to run Node.js Server.

Setup & SSH:

• After creating the VM, the SSH user is ‘azureuser’
• In Terminal, run:

ssh azureuser@<your-service-name>.cloudapp.net

Installing Apache and Git Core

sudo apt-get update

Install the dependencies

sudo apt-get install g++ curl libssl-dev apache2-utils
sudo apt-get install git-core

Run the following commands:

git clone git://github.com/joyent/node.git
cd node/
./configure 
make
ls -l
node
sudo make install

Explanations:

• git clone creates a copy of git repository node's source code is in
• cd node/ changes directory to the one you just created with those files
• ./configure checks for dependencies and creates a makefile
• make executes that makefile, which results in compiling the source code into binary executable(s), libraries and any other outputs
• ls -l lists the files in the current directory
• node runs the node binary executable you just compiled from source, to ensure the compilation was successful
• sudo make install copies the files you just created from the current directory to their permanent homes, /usr/local/bin and such

Instal NPM

sudo apt-get install nodejs npm

Install Express

cd ~
sudo mkdir <application folder name>
cd <application folder name>
sudo npm install express -g

Upstart & Server Environment Variables Create a node-upstart.conf (file name doesn't matter) in the /etc/bin directory

#!upstartart
description "node.js server"
author      "Ludo Goarin"

# until we found some mounts weren't ready yet while booting:
start on (local-filesystems and net-device-up)
stop on shutdown

# Automatically Respawn:
respawn
respawn limit 99 5

script
    # Not sure why $HOME is needed, but we found that it is:
    export HOME="/home/azureuser"
    export NODE_ENV="production"
    export PORT="80"
    exec /usr/local/bin/node /home/azureuser/<path to your application app.js file> >> /var/log/node-upstart.log 2>&1
end script

The above will ensure your Node.js app runs on port 80 and will start or re-start automatically in case of crash or server reboot.

Test Upstart

start node-upstart.conf

Restart your server to make sure your app is running correctly

status node-upstart

The above command should return something like: node-upstart start/running, process 886

GitHub Deployment

git clone https://github.com/<username>/<repo>.git
Username: <username>
Password: <password>