Prepare server to host API

[brennanMKE]

Virtual Hosting appears to be in order for Digital Ocean to make everything run from a single IP address. The vhost module appears to be popular and very capable.

• https://www.npmjs.org/package/vhost
• https://github.com/expressjs/vhost

I've updated a Digital Ocean instance with Ubuntu and the latest stable release of node and will configure it to run vhost so that it proxies the requests on port 80 for a named host to the port which is running the API. This way we can also run the frontend website with a responsive layout from a different instance as well as other websites and APIs on the same server.

To run the API and website for Chicago we could use virtual hosts with separate instances so they are managed separately while still working from the same $5/month droplet on Digital Ocean. I am curious how well it will hold up.

[brennanMKE]

vost looks good too

https://github.com/kommander/vost

[brennanMKE]

I experimented with running Express.js for proxying from port 80 to other localhost servers. I have not been able to make it work. I tried a couple of configurations from referencing a few blog posts and Stackoverflow but they result in exceptions. I will try again now that I have a little more time.

I am also interested in trying out Nginx. It appears to have a way to configure a reverse proxy.

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/22670413/routing-to-different-servers-with-nginx