How to Deploy a NodeJs App to Ubuntu Virtual Machine with Azure DevOps Pipelines

The pre-configuration steps that are required to ensure your server is ready to accept the NodeJs app files and to ensure Azure DevOps can connect to the server are:

• Set up an environment in your Azure DevOps project
• Create an SSH Connection Authorisation in Azure DevOps
• Create the target folder on the Ubuntu server
• Install NodeJs on the Ubuntu server
• Install pm2 globally on the Ubuntu server

The essential steps of this deployment pipeline are:

• Fetch the app files from the selected git repo (GitHub, Bitbucket etc)
• Use the pre-built CopyFilesOverSSH task from Azure DevOps
• Exclude the node_modules and git related files
• SSH into the Ubuntu server
• Run the NPM scripts (Test, Build)
• Start the app using PM2

trigger:
- main

variables:
  # Azure Resource Manager connection created during pipeline creation
  azureSubscription: '${Your Azure Subscription Name}'
  # Agent VM image name
  vmImageName: 'ubuntu-latest'

  environmentName: '${Azure DevOps Environment Name}'

pool:
  vmImage: $(vmImageName)

stages:
- stage: Build
  displayName: Build stage
  jobs:  
  - job: Build
    displayName: Build
    steps:
    - task: CopyFilesOverSSH@0
      inputs:
        sshEndpoint: '${ssh-connection-name}'
        sourceFolder: '$(System.DefaultWorkingDirectory)'
        contents: |
          **
          !node_modules/**
          !.git/**
        targetFolder: '/home/${Ubuntu-Server-Username}/${nodejs-app-folder}'
        cleanTargetFolder: true
        cleanHiddenFilesInTarget: false
        readyTimeout: '20000'
    - task: SSH@0
      inputs:
        sshEndpoint: '${ssh-connection-name}'
        runOptions: 'inline'
        inline: |
          cd ${nodejs-app-folder}
          npm install --silent
          npm run build
          pm2 stop ${build-folder-main-js-file}
          pm2 start ${build-folder-main-js-file}
        readyTimeout: '20000'

Improvements that could be implemented to this pipeline are to ensure a npm test script is run and that all tests pass before allowing the build task to execute.