Installing Passenger + Apache on a Digital Ocean production server
for Node.js apps + Ubuntu 17.10 (with APT)

On this page, we will install Passenger. After installing Passenger we can begin with deploying the app.

Heads up: limited package support for non-LTS Ubuntu versions

Before we continue, you should know that the Ubuntu version you selected is a non-LTS (Long Term Support) version. This means that Canonical — the company that created Ubuntu — only supports this particular Ubuntu version for 1 year.

Because of this short support cycle by Canonical, we only provide Passenger package updates for this Ubuntu version for 6 months. That's when the next Ubuntu version comes out.

So when the next Ubuntu version is released, you must upgrade your system to that new Ubuntu version. Otherwise you won't receive Passenger updates in the form of .deb packages from us anymore.

If you don't like having to upgrade your Ubuntu system every 6 months, then you should use an LTS version of Ubuntu. Canonical supports LTS versions for 5 years, and we provide Passenger package updates for LTS versions for 5 years too.

Now that you know this, let's move on.

Step 1: install Passenger packages

These commands will install Passenger + Apache module through Phusion's APT repository.

# Install our PGP key and add HTTPS support for APT
sudo apt-get install -y dirmngr gnupg
sudo apt-key adv --keyserver hkp://keyserver.ubuntu.com:80 --recv-keys 561F9B9CAC40B2F7
sudo apt-get install -y apt-transport-https ca-certificates

# Add our APT repository
sudo sh -c 'echo deb https://oss-binaries.phusionpassenger.com/apt/passenger artful main > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/passenger.list'
sudo apt-get update

# Install Passenger + Apache module
sudo apt-get install -y libapache2-mod-passenger

Step 2: enable the Passenger Apache module and restart Apache

$ sudo a2enmod passenger
$ sudo apache2ctl restart

Step 3: check installation

After installation, please validate the install by running sudo /usr/bin/passenger-config validate-install. For example:

$ sudo /usr/bin/passenger-config validate-install
 * Checking whether this Phusion Passenger install is in PATH... ✓
 * Checking whether there are no other Phusion Passenger installations... ✓

All checks should pass. If any of the checks do not pass, please follow the suggestions on screen.

Finally, check whether Apache has started the Passenger core processes. Run sudo /usr/sbin/passenger-memory-stats. You should see Apache processes as well as Passenger processes. For example:

$ sudo /usr/sbin/passenger-memory-stats
Version: 5.0.8
Date   : 2015-05-28 08:46:20 +0200

---------- Apache processes ----------
PID    PPID   VMSize    Private  Name
--------------------------------------
3918   1      190.1 MB  0.1 MB   /usr/sbin/apache2
...

----- Passenger processes ------
PID    VMSize    Private   Name
--------------------------------
12517  83.2 MB   0.6 MB    Passenger watchdog
12520  266.0 MB  3.4 MB    Passenger core
12531  149.5 MB  1.4 MB    Passenger ust-router
...

If you do not see any Apache processes or Passenger processes, then you probably have some kind of installation problem or configuration problem. Please refer to the troubleshooting guide.

Step 4: update regularly

Apache updates, Passenger updates and system updates are delivered through the APT package manager regularly. You should run the following command regularly to keep them up to date:

$ sudo apt-get update
$ sudo apt-get upgrade

You do not need to restart Apache or Passenger after an update, and you also do not need to modify any configuration files after an update. That is all taken care of automatically for you by APT.

Next step

Now that you have installed Passenger, you are ready to deploy your Node.js application on the production server!

Continue: Deploy app »