Deploy Nuxtjs to CPanel

Updated: 2022-10-08

Opinion: I no longer think CPanel is a good solution for hosting nuxtjs application.

Recommendation: Move to https://vercel.com/ or any other serverless hosting service provider, you will get much better page speed.

Need help: Contact Us

Step 0

Update package.json with following two packages (fs & path):

  "devDependencies": {
    ...
    "fs": "0.0.2",
    "path": "^0.12.7",
    ....
  }

Run npm install to install the packages.

Step 1:

Update your nuxt.config.js with following code:

var fs = require('fs');
var path = require('path');

let ENV_DEV = true;

//Development Environment
let port = <port>;
let host = 'localhost';
let https = false;

//Production Environment
if(ENV_DEV==false)
{
  port = <port>; // make sure this port is open on your server you can do that via WHM or talk to you hosting company
  host = '<domain-name>';
  https =  {
    key: fs.readFileSync(path.resolve(__dirname,
        './../../ssl/keys/<ssl-key-file-name>.key')),
    cert: fs.readFileSync(path.resolve(__dirname,
        './../../ssl/certs/<ssl-crt-file-name>.crt'))
  };
}

export default {
  mode: 'universal',
  env: {

  },
  server: {
    port: port, 
    host: host, 
    timing: false,
    https: https
  },
  //keep rest of the code as it is

Change the value of ENV_DEV to false in nuxt.config.js if you want to run the application cpanel with https otherwise to run in development environment change ENV_DEV to true, it will run with http.

Step 2:

Create .htaccess file at the root of your domain or sub domain director:

Options -Indexes
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{SERVER_PORT} 443
RewriteRule ^index.php(.*) https://%{HTTP_HOST}:<port>/$1 [P,L]
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ https://%{HTTP_HOST}:<port>/$1 [P,L]

Replace <port> with the port number of your application.

Run npm run dev and open the website if you get 500 error follow Step 3.

Step 3:

Make sure SSLProxyEngine is on for you domain. If not do following from ssh:

• cd /etc/apache2/conf.d/userdata/ssl/2_4/<cpanel-domain-username>/
• check if it has a folder for your domain name like vaah.dev or sub domain like cli.vaah.dev
• if not then create mkdir <domain-name> and cd <domain-name>
• create file sudo vim 00-sslproxy.conf with only SSLProxyEngine on content and save the file
• run /usr/local/cpanel/scripts/rebuildhttpdconf to rebuild httpd.conf
• run /usr/local/cpanel/scripts/restartsrv_httpd to restart apache

Run npm run dev and open the website again should be working without any error.

Step 4:

To start server permanently, run following commands in sequence:

• npm run build
• pm2 start npm --name <app-name> -- start

Replace <app-name> to any useful name to identify the PM2 process.

Other Command

• pm2 list: to see the list
• pm2 stop all: Stop all processes
• pm2 restart all: Restart all processes
• pm2 delete all: Delete all processes