node.js https server not loading responding

Question

I am trying to start a https node.js server.

I started by creating a certificate and key following this guide:

http://gaboesquivel.com/blog/2014/nodejs-https-and-ssl-certificate-for-development/

and I placed them in my /app_name/security/keys directory.

To start my https server, I have the following:

const https         = require('https'),
      fs            = require('fs');

if(app.get('env') === 'development') {

    console.log('dev env!!'); //prints correctly
    console.log('port: ' + port); //prints correctly
    const options = {
        key: fs.readFileSync('./security/keys/key.pem'),
        cert: fs.readFileSync('./security/keys/cert.pem')
    };   

    https.createServer(options, (req, res) => {

        console.log('https good to go'); //this does not print out anything

    }).listen(port);

}

When I go to https://localhost:3000, the page throws an error

This site can’t be reached

localhost unexpectedly closed the connection.
ERR_CONNECTION_CLOSED

But there's no error on the server side console. Furthermore, if i go to the regular localhost:3000, I get:

The localhost page isn’t working

localhost didn’t send any data.
ERR_EMPTY_RESPONSE

Can someone help?

Thanks in advance!

---- UPDATE ----

I'm running on port 443 now. Initially I got an error:

Error: listen EACCES 0.0.0.0:443 so I ran:

sudo NODE_ENV=development nodemon app

Which did not throw any errors. However, when I went to https://localhost:443, I get:

This site can’t be reached

localhost unexpectedly closed the connection.

Answer 1

I used express as a web server. to install express:

npm install express --save

I took your code, added the usage in express, generated certificate using openssl, and executed it - all looked good, the server was up, listening to port 3000 over https.

My code (which is based on your code...):

var app = require('express')();
const https         = require('https'),
      fs            = require('fs'),
      port          = 3000;

if(app.get('env') === 'development') {

    console.log('dev env!!'); //prints correctly
    console.log('port: ' + port); //prints correctly
    const options = {
        key: fs.readFileSync('/tmp/private.key'),
        cert: fs.readFileSync('/tmp/publickey.crt')
    };

    https.createServer(options, (req, res) => {

        console.log('https good to go'); //this does message appears!!! ^_^

    }).listen(port);

}

Please pay attention to the way I defined app: var app = require('express')();

You can split this definition into two line if it's more readable:

var express = require('express');
var app = express();