How do I launch an AWS EC2 instance for Node.js?
Go to EC2 console, click Launch Instance, choose Ubuntu 22.04 LTS AMI, select t2.micro (free tier), configure security group (SSH from your IP, HTTP/HTTPS from anywhere), create a key pair, and launch. Connect via SSH using the .pem file.
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Ubuntu Server 22.04 LTS or 24.04 LTS. Ubuntu has a large community, easy-to-use apt package manager, and long-term support for stability. It's the most common choice for Node.js deployment.
Use SSH with the key pair .pem file. On Mac/Linux: chmod 400 key.pem, then ssh -i key.pem ubuntu@public-ip. On Windows, use PuTTY or PowerShell. Find the public IP in the EC2 console.
Yes, for production. By default, the public IP changes when you stop/start the instance. An Elastic IP is a static public IP that persists across restarts. Go to EC2 → Elastic IPs → Allocate, then associate with your instance.
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