I have a Node.js application running on my Linode server and my server will need SSL.
I understand I need to purchase one, something like this: http://www.namecheap.com/ssl-certificates/comodo/essential-ssl-certificate.aspx
I understand I need to get a dedicated IP address and follow these instructions: http://library.linode.com/security/ssl-certificates/commercial
What I don't understand is how my Node application would know about this SSL certificate? Does my Node application care?
You should run a https server.
If you are running expressjs you can do something like this - using the certificate and key you get form your ssl provider.
var express = require('express')
, fs = require("fs");
var privateKey = fs.readFileSync('security/privatekey.pem').toString();
var certificate = fs.readFileSync('security/certificate.pem').toString();
// to enable https
var app = module.exports = express.createServer({key: privateKey, cert: certificate});
Hope that helps.
EDIT:
You can check out this link - this guy is using a standard node server implementation and not express. However i'm not sure if the security api has changed - this post is nearly 2 years old.