How to remote debug Node JS with PHPStorm?

Question

I have a windows box and a VM running CentOS. Does anyone happen to know how I can debug a node CLI script (which doesn\'t open a port) using PHPStorm? The \"edit configuration\

Answer 1

For non-Windows users, here is how to setup the port forwarding tunnel using ssh:

ssh -f ssh_user@your-remote-host -L local_port:localhost:port_on_remote -N

This means "ssh to your-remote-host, login as ssh_user. Once there open connection to localhost:port_on_remote and expose this connection at local_port of machine where ssh is run".

The non-obvious piece is you need to use localhost, since Node's debugger only binds itself to localhost ip address (and not to address to which your-remote-host would resolve).

Example with real values:

ssh -f me@nodeserver.com -L 5858:localhost:5858 -N

(based on this howto, just took me some time to figure out the localhost piece).