node.js running alongside Apache PHP?

Question

I am trying to get my head round node.js...

I am very happy with my LAMP set up as it currently fulfils my requirements. Although I want to add some real-time features i

Answer 1

I'm running a wss (secure websocket) server alongside my LAMP setup.

Node.js can easily run alongside any other web server (apache) you want. In @KitCarrau example, he lets node run on port 8084 - that's where it's running and listening to, not 80 or 443 etc (those are usually taken by apache anyway). But you can still use the same port to also serve http/https (in my case just stating some conf and general info that the service is up).

Starting from the console isn't the best way (remotely, node stops when closing the console). I recommend taking a look at Running node as service

Easy to track log in realtime (log with console.log("hello"); in your application) with:

tail -f /var/.../SocketServer.log

Sample script (node-server.conf):

author ....    
description "node.js server"    
# used to be: start on startup
# until we found some mounts weren't ready yet while booting:

start on started mountall
stop on shutdown

# Automatically Respawn:
respawn
respawn limit 99 5

# Max open files are @ 1024 by default. Bit few.
limit nofile 32768 32768

script
    # Not sure why $HOME is needed, but we found that it is:
    export HOME="/root"

    exec node /var/.../SocketServer.js >> /var/www/node/.../SocketServer.log 2>&1
end script

post-start script
   # Optionally put a script here that will notifiy you node has (re)started
   # /root/bin/hoptoad.sh "node.js has started!"
   echo "\n*********\nServer started\n$(date)\n*********" >> /var/.../SocketServer.log

end script