Introduction

After a year of building with Astro, I decided to transition from managed hosting solutions to a self-hosted setup. This series covers the migration process from Netlify to Digital Ocean, focusing on server configuration and deployment strategies.

Prerequisites

Before diving into the server setup, you’ll need:

1. A registered domain name (via Namecheap or similar)
2. A Virtual Private Server (VPS) from Digital Ocean
3. Basic command line knowledge
4. SSH access to your server

Server Configuration

The core of our setup revolves around two key components: Nginx as our web server and Node.js for running the Astro application. Here’s how to configure them:

1. Installing and Configuring Nginx

First, install and start Nginx:

sudo apt install nginx
sudo service nginx start

Verify the installation by accessing your server’s IP address. You should see the default Nginx welcome page.

2. Setting Up Node.js

Install Node.js using the official distribution:

# Follow Node.js official installation steps
curl -fsSL https://deb.nodesource.com/setup_lts.x | sudo -E bash -
sudo apt-get install -y nodejs

Create a test application to verify the setup:

const http = require('node:http')

http
  .createServer((req, res) => {
    res.write('Node.js server running')
    res.end()
  })
  .listen(3000)

console.log('server started on port 3000')

3. Configuring Nginx as a Reverse Proxy

Create a virtual server configuration in /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/kiiyurus.space:

server {
  listen 80 default_server;
  listen [::]:80 default_server;

  root /var/www/html;
  index index.html;

  server_name kiiyurus.space;

  location / {
      proxy_pass http://127.0.0.1:3000/;
  }
}

Update the Nginx configuration in /etc/nginx/nginx.conf:

##
# Virtual Host Configs
##

include /etc/nginx/conf.d/*.conf;
include /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/kiiyurus-space;

4. Deploying the Configuration

Apply the changes with these commands:

sudo nginx -t          # Test configuration
sudo service nginx restart
node server.js         # Start the Node application

At this point, accessing your server’s IP address should display the Node.js test message instead of the default Nginx page.

Next Steps

Part 2 of this series will cover:

• Deploying the Astro application
• Setting up PM2 for process management
• Configuring SSL certificates
• Implementing automatic deployments

The foundation we’ve built here provides a robust base for hosting not just Astro sites, but any Node.js application.