Any tips for installing NodeBB on AWS Lightsail?

[jaycincotta]

I'm just getting started with AWS and NodeBB. I have a lot of experience in the Microsoft ecosystem, but feel like a total newbie on this project.

I've seen guidance on running NodeBB under EC2, but this is for a small forum with a tight budget and it seems that Lightsail should be sufficient for our needs and much cheaper.

I've researched enough to know that Lightsail supports Ubuntu and that NodeBB recommends Ubuntu. But I also saw that AWS support for new Ubuntu versions on Lightsail often lags EC2 support.

I wanted to check with this community if there are any issues or tricks I should be aware of. I got a little worried by the sparse number of Google results when searching for NodeDB on Lightsail.

For instance, are there any issues/tricks or version compatibility concerns related to MongoDB? I read about their being an issue with the MongoDB add-on for Heroku being discontinued and wanted to know if there were any issues like that with Lightsail.

Or are there any issues or tricks associated with uploading images? Again, I noticed that Heroku doesn't support images and requires configuring a Imgur service for images.

Another area is SSL. Any dragons there?

If anyone else has this configuration, I'd appreciate any tips you learned along the way. Or, if not, cautions about why it's not a popular configuration are also greatly appreciated

Thanks!

[Varun Ganesh D]

@jaycincotta NodeBB runs smoothly on ec2. I've tried
Currently I'm running on Digital Ocean 5$ droplet.
I was running on heroku. Heroku makes problem when update the forum. Recently MongoDB support stopped.
Lightsail and Digital Ocean Price so similar i think.

[jaycincotta]

@Varun-Ganesh-D Thank you. If you were already on AWS EC2 and your forum was running smoothly, why did you move to Digital Ocean? And why didn't you consider AWS Lightsail?

[jaycincotta]

@Varun-Ganesh-D Also, how do you handle image upload? Are you using the Imgur plug-in or a different approach?

[PitaJ]

As long as Lightsail doesn't limit the capabilities of their VPS, I don't see why it would be any different from a normal install on Ubuntu.

[Varun Ganesh D]

@jaycincotta I was tried on Aws ec2 one year free tire
I don't trust to use production level on ec2 free tire.
I had 50$ coupon for 10 months and redeemed that on Digital Ocean.
Now its 2nd month.. so using it. No specific reason to move to digital Ocean.
For trail purpose i Installed on EC2, that's all

[Varun Ganesh D]

@jaycincotta for image purpose I'm using imgur.
I feel thats pretty easy and good. I think we can reduce storage memory if we use imgur for images.

[scottalanmiller]

@jaycincotta said in Any tips for installing NodeBB on AWS Lightsail?:

I got a little worried by the sparse number of Google results when searching for NodeDB on Lightsail.

There are lots of reasons for that. One being that LightSail itself is extremely unpopular (not bad, just not popular.) And installations should not be product specific in that way, so people using it should be documenting by operating system, not by host provider. So any real documentation will be about Ubuntu not LightSail. That LightSail provides Ubuntu is neither here nor there.

I recommend CentOS 8. And I have a guide to make it as easy as can be.

[scottalanmiller]

@Varun-Ganesh-D said in Any tips for installing NodeBB on AWS Lightsail?:

@jaycincotta for image purpose I'm using imgur.
I feel thats pretty easy and good. I think we can reduce storage memory if we use imgur for images.

Same here. Imgur has worked well for many years (almost seven for us!)

[scottalanmiller]

@Varun-Ganesh-D said in Any tips for installing NodeBB on AWS Lightsail?:

@jaycincotta I was tried on Aws ec2 one year free tire
I don't trust to use production level on ec2 free tire.
I had 50$ coupon for 10 months and redeemed that on Digital Ocean.
Now its 2nd month.. so using it. No specific reason to move to digital Ocean.
For trail purpose i Installed on EC2, that's all

DO is quite good. We've found Vultr to be even better. Linode has been great, as well.

[scottalanmiller]

@PitaJ said in Any tips for installing NodeBB on AWS Lightsail?:

As long as Lightsail doesn't limit the capabilities of their VPS, I don't see why it would be any different from a normal install on Ubuntu.

yeah, it's identical. LightSail ends up being exactly like a DO or Vultr.