How to create an HTTPS server in Node.js?

Question

Given an SSL key and certificate, how does one create an HTTPS service?

Answer 1

The Express API doc spells this out pretty clearly.

Additionally this answer gives the steps to create a self-signed certificate.

I have added some comments and a snippet from the Node.js HTTPS documentation:

var express = require('express'); var https = require('https'); var http = require('http'); var fs = require('fs');  // This line is from the Node.js HTTPS documentation. var options = {   key: fs.readFileSync('test/fixtures/keys/agent2-key.pem'),   cert: fs.readFileSync('test/fixtures/keys/agent2-cert.cert') };  // Create a service (the app object is just a callback). var app = express();  // Create an HTTP service. http.createServer(app).listen(80); // Create an HTTPS service identical to the HTTP service. https.createServer(options, app).listen(443); 

Answer 2

For Node 0.3.4 and above all the way up to the current LTS (v16 at the time of this edit), https://nodejs.org/api/https.html#httpscreateserveroptions-requestlistener has all the example code you need:

const https = require(`https`); const fs = require(`fs`);  const options = {   key: fs.readFileSync(`test/fixtures/keys/agent2-key.pem`),   cert: fs.readFileSync(`test/fixtures/keys/agent2-cert.pem`) };  https.createServer(options, (req, res) => {   res.writeHead(200);   res.end(`hello world\n`); }).listen(8000); 

Note that if want to use Let's Encrypt's certificates using the certbot tool, the private key is called privkey.pem and the certificate is called fullchain.pem:

const certDir = `/etc/letsencrypt/live`; const domain = `YourDomainName`; const options = {   key: fs.readFileSync(`${certDir}/${domain}/privkey.pem`),   cert: fs.readFileSync(`${certDir}/${domain}/fullchain.pem`) };