Where to deploy node.js apps on a Linux server?

Question

I'm running 4 separate Node.js apps on a Linux server with different ports and a proxy in front.

As I'm (right now) the only user in the server, it doesn't matter where I place the apps and how to run them. Currently my apps stay under my home directory (~/app1/, ~/app2/, etc.).

So my question is: where should I place the apps so that they can be shared between multiple users? Is there a standard place similar to /var/www?

Answer 1

I use https://github.com/visionmedia/deploy to deploy my apps. It will create a /var/www/productname directory. Inside that directory you have source, current and shared. The shared directory has the log and pid files.

I found that a good directory structure so that's what I am using for all my projects.

Answer 2

I run Apache in addition to Node.js on the same server, so I don't really like having applications for Apache and Node.js in the same directory. My Apache hosted applications go in the traditional /var/www/ path, and I put my Node.JS applications under /var/node/. This is due to some automation I have setup in both Apache (Dynamic Virtual Hosts) and Node.JS.

More information on my setup and automating Proxy and Apache deployment can be found here: How to use vhosts alongside node-http-proxy?

Answer 3

If you are using AWS Elastic beans stack for Node JS application on Linux server, then it should be there in /var/app/current/ directory