Hosting a Golang MongoDB app on a droplet(digital ocean)

Preparing to host a Golang app on the cloud can be challenging and I am not talking of cloud services that once you set up configuration and connect your repository you are done, I mean the manual setup of a droplet to run a Golang MongoDB app.

This might seem retrogressive but it comes in handy for small apps and websites.

With the introduction of CICD, some platforms require very few configurations and you are up and running.

Future updates require you to push updates to your repository and those platforms pull the changes and update the system, or the website. CICD( continuous delivery, continuous deployment) at its fullest.

Such platforms include Vercel, Netlify among others for frontend, fly.io is a platform for backend developers(Golang)

With that said let us delve into a manual setup of a digital ocean server to run a Golang MongoDB app

Steps to set up of a digital ocean server to run a Golang MongoDB app

1. create a Digital Ocean server and create a user to work with.
2. Log in with the created user and update the droplet "sudo apt update"
3. Install node and npm
4. install Nginx
5. Install pm2
6. install certbot

step 1: create a Digital ocean server and create a user to work with.

login with the root user

ssh root@ip         

then enter your password(don't worry when nothing happens, it just is a security measure to ensure that no one peeping can see the length of you password)

Add user:

adduser newuser        

Adding the New User to the Sudo Group

groups newuser        

It will prompt you to add a few other details like password and the like - just do it

By default, a new user is only in their own group because adduser creates this in addition to the user profile. A user and its own group share the same name. In order to add the user to a new group, you can use the usermod command:

usermod -aG sudo newuser        

The -aG option tells usermod to add the user to the listed groups.

The user needs access to Digital Ocean to do stuff

rsync --archive --chown=newuser:newuser ~/.ssh /home/newuser        

Step 2: Log in with the created user and update the droplet "sudo apt update"

login to your server

ssh newuser@your_server_ip        

and enter the password.

the run :

sudo apt update        

step 3: Install node and npm

run the following:

sudo apt update        

Then install Node.js:

sudo apt install nodejs        

then install npm

sudo apt install npm        

With those installed, it is easier to install other applications to ensure the application is running forever on the server(pm2) and is exposed to the outside world (nginx)

Step 4: install Nginx

sudo apt update
sudo apt install nginx        

adjust the firewalls

sudo ufw app list        

sudo ufw allow 'Nginx HTTP'        

check whether nginx is running correctly

systemctl status nginx        

Step 5: Install pm2

sudo npm install pm2 -g        

step 6: install certbot

So why install certbot?

Certbot ensures the domain added is secure the s in the HTTP(s)://example.com.

and of course you have to do some configurations:

sudo snap install core; sudo snap refresh core        

sudo snap install --classic certbot        

sudo ln -s /snap/bin/certbot /usr/bin/certbot        

Obtaining an SSL Certificate

sudo certbot --nginx -d example.com -d www.example.com        

with that, we have prepared the platform for hosting the Golang app and MongoDB

In the next article, we will continue to have the Golang app and Mongo running and exposed to the outside world.

I hope you found this article resourceful.