🚀 Challenges Faced in Deploying a Web App and How to Overcome Them

Deploying a web application involves several challenges, especially when dealing with server configurations, software dependencies, and performance optimizations. In this article, we will discuss the key problems faced during our web app deployment and the solutions implemented to overcome them.

1. Choosing the Right Web Server 🌐

❌ Problem: Initially, we had to decide between Nginx and LiteSpeed as the web server for handling requests.

✅ Solution: After evaluating performance, ease of configuration, and compatibility, we chose LiteSpeed for the web app deployment and Nginx for hosting Ghost CMS.

2. Configuring Node.js with LiteSpeed 🛠️

❌ Problem: LiteSpeed does not natively support Node.js applications as seamlessly as Nginx.

✅ Solution: Used LiteSpeed’s reverse proxy functionality to route requests to the Node.js application.

3. File Conversion Challenges with LibreOffice and ImageMagick 📄

❌ Problem: Integrating document conversion services using Unoconv (LibreOffice) and ImageMagick on Ubuntu required careful setup.

✅ Solution:

• Installed LibreOffice and ensured soffice (headless mode) was working.
• Configured ImageMagick to bypass security restrictions.

4. Database Configuration and Synchronization 🗄️

❌ Problem: Needed a setup where the MariaDB database on the cloud server could sync with a local database.

✅ Solution: Used MySQL/MariaDB replication to set up a master-slave architecture.

5. Firewall and Security Restrictions 🔒

❌ Problem: Ubuntu’s firewalld and cloud provider’s security settings sometimes blocked essential services.

✅ Solution: Opened necessary ports, configured UFW, and set up fail2ban to prevent brute-force attacks.

6. Setting Up Ghost CMS with Nginx 📝

❌ Problem: The default installation path of Ghost did not contain an nginx directory, causing configuration issues.

✅ Solution: Manually created an Nginx configuration file, used certbot for SSL, and restarted Nginx.

🎯 Conclusion

Despite various challenges, careful troubleshooting, documentation, and systematic problem-solving allowed us to deploy the web app successfully. By leveraging the right technologies and configurations, we optimized performance, security, and reliability for our project.