Error: listen EACCES 0.0.0.0:80 OSx Node.js

Question

I'm following a tutorial in a angularJS book and have to setup a server. This is the server.js file:

 var express = require('express');
  var app = express();
   app.use('/', express.static('./'));
    app.listen(80);

I get this error:

$ node server.js
events.js:154
      throw er; // Unhandled 'error' event
      ^

Error: listen EACCES 0.0.0.0:80

I know already, that the Error EACCES means that i don't have access rights to the port 80, but i don't know how to fix this. Any help much appreciated!

Para

change the port to something > 1024, e.g. app.listen(8080) or start the server as root, sudo node server.js. – Claar

Yes that worked. Thank you @Claar i changed the port. Dow you know why i get this error with the port 80? – Para

On many systems you need to be root (or similar) to open the ports below 1024. So your choices are pick a port above 1024 or, if you have the permissions, run your code as root. – Penny

Answer 1

If you need to run the server on port 80 you should use a reverse proxy like nginx that will run using a system account on a privileged port and proxy the requests to your Node.js server running on an unprivileged port (> 1024).

When running in development environment you're pretty much free to run as root (ie. sudo node server.js), but that is rather dangerous in production environment.

Here's a sample nginx config that will see if the request is for a file that exists in the filesystem, and if not, proxy the request to your Node.js server running on port 9000

upstream yournodeapp {
  server localhost:9000 fail_timeout=0;
  keepalive 60;
}

server {
  server_name localhost;
  listen 80 default_server;

  # Serve static assets from this folder
  root /home/user/project/public;

  location / {
    try_files $uri @yournodeapp;
  }

  location @yournodeapp {
    proxy_pass http://yournodeapp;
    proxy_set_header Host $host;
    proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-For $proxy_add_x_forwarded_for;
    proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-Proto $scheme;
    proxy_http_version 1.1;
    proxy_set_header Upgrade $http_upgrade;
    proxy_set_header Connection "upgrade";
  }
}

Snuff

ugh. isn't there some way to proxy using node itself? – Pember

Nginx or Apache is not necessary. There is a great number of Node proxies: redbird, http-proxy-middleware. To fix the above issue you most likely need to SUDO script execution: sudo node server.js – Viscid

@Pember see my answer below... using node itself – Humfrey

Answer 2

to give root access to node and start server on port 80 you can do

sudo node app.js

this will start the server giving permission on port 80

Hypothetical

Advising to run as root introduces unnecessary security risks. This is ill-advised. – Humfrey

Answer 3

Foremost, do not run as root. That's asking for 'it'. "It" is really bad. Go see the movie. Then, don't run your node web project as root.

// DO NOT DO THIS!
$ sudo node app.js

// DO NOT DO THIS EITHER!
$ sudo su -
# node app.js

Instead, use PM2 and authbind to do this:

// %user% is whatever user is running your code
sudo touch /etc/authbind/byport/80
sudo chown %user% /etc/authbind/byport/80
sudo chmod 755 /etc/authbind/byport/80

Next, add this alias to your ~/.bash_aliases or ~/.bashrc or ~/.bash_profile:

alias pm2='authbind --deep pm2'

Then, try it with pm2:

pm2 start app.js

Humfrey

touch: cannot touch ‘/etc/authbind/byport/80’: No such file or directory – Sahara

Answer 4

On Windows I fixed this by setting Express to listen on port 8080 for HTTP and 8443 for HTTPS. It really doesn't like using those lower number ports. Also I have IIS installed and running so it might be some sort of port conflict there too.

Joan

IIS usually grabs port 80 for the Default site. – Perrins

Answer 5

there is

sudo ufw allow 80/tcp

and it should be port forwarded, worked for me atleast

Waine