How to create HTTPS Server with Node.js ?

Last Updated : 01 Oct, 2021

The HTTP protocol is one of the most important protocols for smooth communication between the networks but in the HTTP protocol, data is not encrypted so any sensitive information can be sniffed during the communication so there is another version of the HTTP i.e HTTPS that encrypts the data during the transmission between a browser and the server. In this article, we will discuss how we can create an HTTPS server using Node.js.

To built an HTTPS server with nodeJs, we need an SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) certificate. We can create a self-signed SSL certificate on our local machine. Let’s first create an SSL certificate on our machine first.

Step 1: First of all we would generate a self-signed certificate. Open your terminal or git bash and run the following command:

openssl req -nodes -new -x509 -keyout server.key -out server.cert

After running this command, we would get some options to fill. We can keep those options default or empty by entering ‘.‘ (dot). We would fill only two options for current as that would work fine for us.

Common Name (e.g. server FQDN or your name): localhost
Email Address : *************@****** (enter your email)

Other options such as Country Name, State or Province Name, Locality Name, Organization Name, and Organizational Unit Name are self-explanatory and also the system gives their example for help.

creating SSL Certificate

This would generate two files:

server.cert: The self-signed certificate file.
server.key: The private key of the certificate.

Step 2: Now let’s code the index.html file. We will create a form to send a message to the server through a POST request.

index.html

<!DOCTYPE html> 
<html lang="en"> 
  
<head> 
    <meta charset="UTF-8"> 
    <meta http-equiv="X-UA-Compatible" content="IE=edge"> 
    <meta name="viewport" content
        ="width=device-width, initial-scale=1.0"> 
    <title>HTTPS Server</title> 
</head> 
  
<body> 
    <h1>Welcome to HTTPS Server</h1> 
    <br><br> 
    <h3>Enter your message</h3> 
  
    <!--  sending post request to "mssg" with  
        the message from the textarea -->
    <form action="mssg" method="post"> 
        <textarea name="message" id="" 
            cols="30" rows="10"></textarea> 
        <button type="submit">Send</button> 
    </form> 
</body> 
  
</html>

Step 3: Now create an app.js file. We would initialize the project using npm in the terminal

npm init

We would also install express for handling server requests and body-parser for taking input from the form in the POST request.

npm install express
npm install body-parser

Project Structure:

file structure

Step 4: Now we will code the app.js file. In this file, we create an HTTPS server using createServer() function. We pass the certificate and key files of the SSL certificate as options object in createServer() function. We handle GET and POST requests using express in NodeJs.

app.js

// Requiring in-built https for creating 
// https server 
const https = require("https"); 
  
// Express for handling GET and POST request 
const express = require("express"); 
const app = express(); 
  
// Requiring file system to use local files 
const fs = require("fs"); 
  
// Parsing the form of body to take 
// input from forms 
const bodyParser = require("body-parser"); 
  
// Configuring express to use body-parser 
// as middle-ware 
app.use(bodyParser.urlencoded({ extended: false })); 
app.use(bodyParser.json()); 
  
// Get request for root of the app 
app.get("/", function (req, res) { 
  
  // Sending index.html to the browser 
  res.sendFile(__dirname + "/index.html"); 
}); 
  
// Post request for geetting input from 
// the form 
app.post("/mssg", function (req, res) { 
  
  // Logging the form body 
  console.log(req.body); 
  
  // Redirecting to the root 
  res.redirect("/"); 
}); 
  
// Creating object of key and certificate 
// for SSL 
const options = { 
  key: fs.readFileSync("server.key"), 
  cert: fs.readFileSync("server.cert"), 
}; 
  
// Creating https server by passing 
// options and app object 
https.createServer(options, app) 
.listen(3000, function (req, res) { 
  console.log("Server started at port 3000"); 
});