Node.js + Express: app won't start listening on port 80

Question

I create and launch an app like this:

express -s -t ejs npm install express npm install ejs node app.js 

and it works (on port 3000). But when I go and change the port to 80, then running node app.js outputs this:

node.js:198 throw e; // process.nextTick error, or 'error' event on first tick           ^ TypeError: Cannot call method 'getsockname' of null at HTTPServer.address (net.js:746:23) at Object.<anonymous> (/var/www/thorous/app.js:35:67) at Module._compile (module.js:432:26) at Object..js (module.js:450:10) at Module.load (module.js:351:31) at Function._load (module.js:310:12) at Array.<anonymous> (module.js:470:10) at EventEmitter._tickCallback (node.js:190:26) 

This works too on my laptop, but not on my Amazon EC2 instance, where port 80 is open. Can figure out what's wrong. Any tips?

Answer 1

If you really want to do this you can forward traffic on port 80 to 3000.

sudo iptables -t nat -A PREROUTING -p tcp --dport 80 -j REDIRECT --to-ports 3000 

Answer 2

Are you starting your app as root? Because lower port numbers require root privileges. Maybe a sudo node app.js works?

BUT, you should NOT run any node.js app on port 80 with root privileges!!! NEVER!

My suggestions is to run nginx in front as a reverse proxy to your node.js app running on port e.g. 3000