This website will walk you through the steps to deploy a Node Express app with Fly.io. We will walk through all of the necessary steps from start to finish.
Objectives
- Learn how to do a one-time install and configuration of the Fly.io CLI on your machine
- Learn how to choose a domain
- Set up Fly.io environment variables
- Deploy
Why deploy with Fly.io?
Fly.io is one of the easiest to use deployment hosts out there. In addition, it's one of the few that will allow you to deploy an Express back-end server for free (we'll still need to provide a credit card).
The platform has been around since 2017 and is great for hosting full stack apps. It takes less than 10 minutes to get an app up and deployed, and it's extremely user friendly!
Sign Up
If you have never signed up with Fly.io before...
To start, you'll need to head over to Fly.io and sign up for an account. You will be prompted to enter credit card information, but will not be charged unless our website usage surpasses certain thresholds.
Install the Fly.io CLI Tool
In any directory in your terminal, run the following command:
$
curl -L https://fly.io/install.sh | sh
After installing the CLI, you should see an output that recommends adding two lines to your .zshrc file. They will look similar to this:
export FLYCTL_INSTALL="/Users/<your_username>/.fly"
export PATH="$FLYCTL_INSTALL/bin:$PATH"
Copy these lines and be sure to replace <your_username> with your actual Fly.io username.
We'll need to paste these two commands at the bottom of our zsh settings file. Run the following command to open it up in VS Code:
$
open ~/.zshrc
Paste these lines at the bottom. Save the file. Restart your terminal.
Authenticating the Fly.io CLI
We'll need to log into Fly.io with the CLI. To do that, run the following command:
$
flyctl auth login
Launch Your Server
Navigate to the root directory of the project that you want to deploy. This should be where your server.js is located. Once there, run the following command:
$
flyctl launch
When prompted to adjust settings, type Y and the Fly.io dashboard should open up in your browser. Adjust these settings as you like, particularly your app name. The app name you choose will be in your Fly.io URL.
https://expressdeployment.fly.dev/
Setting Up Environment Variables
Environment variables can be set up using the CLI by following this format:
$
flyctl secrets set VARIABLE=value
You may find that it's much easier to set these up on the Fly.io dashboard.
Deploy Your App
At this point, you're all ready to deploy your app. Run the following command in the root directory of your project:
$
flyctl deploy
Recap
In this walkthrough, you successfully deployed your Node Express app to Fly.io.
Any time you make changes to your project that you want reflected on your deployed version, just commit your changes and then run flyctl deploy once more.
Resources
