Learn how to set up express with HTTPS server

For this it is assumed that you have installed openssl. If not find and install openssl from here

Try it yourself !

Clone this repo and generate the keys as mentioned below, install libraries with npm install or yarn.Then run npm run dev or yarn run dev to start the server.

Note: In this repo the cert.pem and selfsigned.key should be inside the src directory, which is where our index.js is.

Generating Keys

cd src
sudo openssl req -x509 -nodes -days 365 -newkey rsa:2048 -keyout ./selfsigned.key -out selfsigned.crt

Save the key as it is and convert the certificate to pem file using below cmd

cd src
sudo openssl x509 -in .\selfsigned.crt -out cert.pem

Express

Express js code ! ( You should use certificate, keys and other credentials safely on production environment, also setup necessary environment variables and use them.)

const fs = require("fs");
const express = require("express");
const cors = require("cors");
const morgan = require("morgan");
const https = require("https");
const http = require("http"); // only import if you need http server

const cert = fs.readFileSync(__dirname + "/cert.pem", "utf8");
const key = fs.readFileSync(__dirname + "/selfsigned.key", "utf8");

const app = express();

app.use(cors());
app.use(express.urlencoded({ extended: true }));
app.use(express.json());
app.use(morgan("tiny"));

app.get("/", (req, res) => {
  return res.send("Hello welcome to the route, it works !");
});

const httpServer = http.createServer(app); // create http server if you want !
const httpsServer = https.createServer(
  {
    key,
    cert,
  },
  app
);
httpServer.listen(8000); // for handling http traffic
httpsServer.listen(8043, "localhost", () => {
  console.log("HTTPS server running on https://localhost:8043");
});

This will get you running with express on https. Also remember if you are using load balancer and reverse proxy like nginx, it may require chaning some configuration in load balancer or reverse proxy. This code works on Windows (for local development, for production, should set up necessary firewall rules) and on linux.

Learn. Enjoy. Share. ❤️