Deploying A Meteor 1.4 App To DigitalOcean With MUP

Table of Content

Introduction
Droplet Setup
Root/User Setup
Domain Setup
NGINX Setup
HTTP Authentication (OPTIONAL)
MUP Setup
References

Introduction

This is a working instructional to deploy a Meteor 1.4 app with the following (as of January 8th, 2017):

DigitalOcean Ubuntu 16.04
Meteor 1.4.2.3
MUP (not MUPX)
MongoDB (local or remote)

The following are missing from this instructional (I aim to tackle these next):

SSL setup
Subdomains

This is Part 1 of the Meteor/MongoDB deployment instructions where we'll setup a production Meteor application with MongoDB. If you want a remote Mongo database, follow instructions here until Step 7 of Mup Setup at which point you'll break off to these instructions.

I concocted these instructions from a multitude of sources, but they're mostly verbatim from @jamiewilson's amazing gist tutorial with edits to the NGINX/MUP portion and addition of a remote MongoDB server. The purpose of a new instructional is to address some recent issues that stem from Meteor 1.4 + MUPX + default docker image + node version, and also to make myself feel better for the last 15 hours I spent chainsmoking and getting this s%&# to work. Said issues are linked below under References.

Please feel free to leave comments, questions, or edits as you see fit! I am by no means claiming to be an expert in anything. I just wanted to share a truly end-to-end working solution. Cheers!

Droplet Setup

<chainsmoke>
Login to DigitalOcean and create a droplet
Select Ubuntu 16.04 distribution
Add secret PEM key

Root/User Setup

ssh [email protected]
adduser username
Enter UNIX password and confirm
gpasswd -a username sudo
sudo visudo
Replace %sudo ALL=(ALL) ALL with %sudo ALL=(ALL) NOPASSWD:ALL
su - username
mkdir .ssh
chmod 700 .ssh
nano .ssh/authorized_keys
Copy your local dev SSH key with cat ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub | pbcopy
Save edit
Restrict permissions with chmod 600 .ssh/authorized_keys
Configure ssh config with nano /etc/ssh/sshd_config
Change PermitRootLogin to: PermitRootLogin no
exit
Test user connection with ssh [email protected]

Domain Setup

Add the following domain registrar
- ns1.digitalocean.com
- ns2.digitalocean.com
- ns3.digitalocean.com
Log back in to DigitalOcean, go to Networking, and click on Domains
Add a domain and select your DigitalOcean droplet in dropdown
Add 2 A Records:
- @ / xxx.xxx.xx.xxx
- www / xxx.xxx.xx.xxx
Add swap space (follow these instructions exactly)

NGINX Setup

Log back in to Droplet server
sudo apt-get update
Install NGINX: sudo apt-get install nginx
sudo nano /etc/nginx/sites-available/default

Add the following and save:

# redirect www to non-www
server {
    listen 80;
    # to redirect all subdomains use *.yourdomain.com instead of www.yourdomain.com
    server_name www.yourdomain.com;
    return 301 $scheme://yourdomain.com$request_uri;
}

sudo nano /etc/nginx/sites-available/yourappname.com.conf

Add the following and save:

server {
    listen 80;
    server_name YOURDOMAIN.com;
    access_log /var/log/nginx/app.dev.access.log;
    error_log /var/log/nginx/app.dev.error.log;
    location / {
        proxy_pass http://XXX.XXX.XX.XXX:3000;
        proxy_http_version 1.1;
        proxy_set_header Upgrade $http_upgrade;
        proxy_set_header Connection 'upgrade';
        proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-For $remote_addr;
    }
}

Link the config file to sites-enabled: sudo ln -s /etc/nginx/sites-available/yourappname.com.conf /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/yourappname.com.conf
Hide NGINX number: sudo nano /etc/nginx/nginx.conf
Uncomment server_tokens off;
Restart NGINX: sudo service nginx restart
Test redirect: curl -I http://www.yourdomain.com

HTTP Authentication (OPTIONAL)

Follow these steps exactly if your app is not ready for public viewing and you want username/password login. When you get to Step 3, edits should occur in the /etc/nginx/sites-available/yourapp.com.conf file from Step 7 under NGINX Setup. See below:

server {
   listen 80;
   server_name YOURDOMAIN.com;
   access_log /var/log/nginx/app.dev.access.log;
   error_log /var/log/nginx/app.dev.error.log;
   location / {
       proxy_pass http://XXX.XXX.XX.XXX:3000;
       proxy_http_version 1.1;
       proxy_set_header Upgrade $http_upgrade;
       proxy_set_header Connection 'upgrade';
       proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-For $remote_addr;
       auth_basic "Restricted"; // <-
       auth_basic_user_file /etc/nginx/.htpasswd; // <-
   }
}

MUP Setup

npm install -g mup
mkdir ~/mup-your-project-name (outside/separate from your actual project repo directory!!!)
cd ~/mup-your-project-name
mup init
Copy your project's settings.json into MUP settings.json

Make following edit to your mup.js file

module.exports = {
  servers: {
    one: {
      host: 'yourdomain.com',
      username: 'your_droplet_username'
      pem: '~/.ssh/id_rsa'
      // password:
      // or leave blank for authenticate from ssh-agent
    }
  },

  meteor: {
    name: 'yourappnamewithoutspaces',
    path: '/local/path/to/your/app/repo',
    servers: {
      one: {}
    },
    buildOptions: {
      serverOnly: true,
    },
    env: {
      ROOT_URL: 'http://yourdomain.com',
      MONGO_URL: 'mongodb://localhost/meteor',
      PORT: 3000
    },

    docker: {
      image: 'abernix/meteord:base' // <- THIS IS IMPORTANT
    },
    deployCheckWaitTime: 60
  },

  mongo: {
    oplog: true,
    port: 27017,
    servers: {
      one: {},
    },
  },
};

There may be an issue with your PEM key if it's passphrase encrypted. Then, do the following:
```
eval "$(ssh-agent -s)"
ssh-add ~/.ssh/id_rsa
```
...and then remove the following line from mup.js: // "pem": "~/.ssh/id_rsa"

At this point if you also want a separate remote MongoDB server, follow these instructions before moving on to the next step. Get the server up and running, and then come back and make the following edits to mup.js:

module.exports = {
  servers: {
    one: {
      host: 'yourdomain.com',
      username: 'your_droplet_username'
      // pem: '~/.ssh/id_rsa'
      // password:
      // or leave blank for authenticate from ssh-agent
    }
  },

  meteor: {
    name: 'yourappnamewithoutspaces',
    path: '/local/path/to/your/app/repo',
    servers: {
      one: {}
    },
    buildOptions: {
      serverOnly: true,
    },
    env: {
      ROOT_URL: 'http://yourdomain.com',
      MONGO_URL: 'mongodb://username:[email protected]:YOUR_DB_PORT_#/yourappdb',
      PORT: 3000
    },

    docker: {
      image: 'abernix/meteord:base'
    },
    deployCheckWaitTime: 60
  }
};

mup setup
SSH back in to Droplet with username (not root) and run: sudo usermod -aG docker $(whoami)
sudo reboot
Back in MUP directory: mup deploy
</chainsmoke>

sunlee-newyork/digitalocean-mup-meteor-1.4.md