# Hosting a Static Website on AWS EC2: A Step-by-Step Guide

**Introduction:**

In today's digital era, having a website is essential for businesses and individuals alike. While there are many ways to host a website, Amazon Web Services (AWS) provides a reliable and scalable infrastructure for hosting websites of all sizes. In this tutorial, we will explore how to host a static website on an AWS EC2 instance using the `http-server` package and the process manager `pm2`. So let's dive in and get started!

## **Prerequisites**

Before we begin, make sure you have the following rerequisites in place:

1. An AWS account with access to the EC2 service.
    
2. An EC2 instance is set up and running with a public IP address.
    
3. Secure Shell (SSH) access to your EC2 instance.
    
4. A static website with all the necessary HTML, CSS, and JavaScript files ready for deployment.  
    

## **Step 1: Connect to your EC2 Instance**

To get started, open a terminal or command prompt on your local machine and connect to your EC2 instance using SSH. Use the following command, replacing `your-instance-ip` with the public IP address of your EC2 instance:  
`ssh -i your-key.pem ec2-user@your-instance-ip`

## **Step 2: Install Node.js and NPM**

Since we'll be using `http-server` and `pm2` to host our static website, we need to have Node.js and NPM (Node Package Manager) installed on our EC2 instance. Execute the following commands to install them:  
`sudo yum update -y`  
`curl -o- https://raw.githubusercontent.com/nvm-sh/nvm/v0.39.0/install.s`  
`source ~/.bashrc`  
`nvm install node`  
These commands will update the package manager, install NVM (Node Version Manager), and use NVM to install the latest stable version of Node.js.

## **Step 3: Install and Configure http-server**

Next, we need to install the `http-server` package globally on our EC2 instance. This package allows us to create a simple HTTP server to serve our static website files. Execute the following command to install `http-server`:  
`npm install -g http-server`  
Once installed, navigate to the root folder of your static website using the `cd` command:  
`cd /path/to/your/website`  
Now, start the `http-server` with the following command:  
`http-server -p 8080`  
The `-p` flag specifies the port number on which the server will listen. Feel free to change it to any available port number.

## **Step 4: Test Your Website**

To verify that your website is being served correctly, open a web browser and enter the following URL, replacing `your-instance-ip` with the public IP address of your EC2 instance:  
`http://your-instance-up:8080`  
If everything is set up correctly, you should see your static website rendered in the browser.

## **Step 5: Install and Configure pm2**

While running the `http-server` directly in the terminal works fine, it has a limitation: if the terminal session ends or your SSH connection is interrupted, the server will stop. To overcome this, we can use `pm2`, a process manager for Node.js applications, to ensure our server keeps running even when we're not connected to the EC2 instance.

Install `pm2` globally by executing the following command:  
`npm install -g pm2`  
Now, start your `http-server` using `pm2` with the following command:

`pm2 start http-server --name my-website -- -p 8080`  
This command starts the `http-server` process with the name `my-website` and listens on port 8080. You can change the process name and port number as per your preference.

## **Conclusion**

Congratulations! You have successfully hosted your static website on an AWS EC2 instance using `http-server` and `pm2`. Now you have a reliable and scalable hosting solution for your website. Remember to keep your EC2 instance up-to-date with security patches and always monitor your server's resources to ensure optimal performance. Happy hosting!