Managing Self-Hosted Infrastructure with systemd, Caddy & Next.js

Cloud platform costs scale quickly. For many self-hosted workloads, running custom server management tooling directly on Linux VPS infrastructure (AWS EC2 / DigitalOcean) provides maximum control at a fraction of the cost.

1. Infrastructure Stack Overview

1. systemd
   : Linux process supervisor ensuring Node.js applications auto-restart after crashes or server reboots.
2. Caddy Proxy: Modern reverse proxy handling automatic HTTPS/TLS certificate generation via Let's Encrypt with minimal configuration.
3. Next.js & MongoDB Control Panel: Web UI for monitoring service health, reading system logs, and triggering deployment updates (
   server.sahilumraniya.dev
   ).

2. Automated Process Supervision & Caddy Configuration

iniExample
# /etc/systemd/system/myapp.service
[Unit]
Description=My Fullstack Application Server
After=network.target

[Service]
Type=simple
User=ubuntu
WorkingDirectory=/var/www/myapp
ExecStart=/usr/bin/yarn start
Restart=always
RestartSec=5
Environment=NODE_ENV=production

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

Caddyfile Configuration:

caddyExample
server.sahilumraniya.dev {
    reverse_proxy localhost:3000
}

3. Key Takeaways

• Sub-Second Reloads: Caddy reloads configuration dynamically without dropping active client TCP connections.
• Zero Maintenance SSL: Automated TLS renewal eliminates certificate expiration downtime forever.