I am trying to get a NodeJs application to run on a Amazon Linux server using port 80. Currently when I run the app it is defaulting to port 1024. I understand that this is due to the fact that I have to be root to run on port 80 but given I am on a aws linux box I am not able to run that as root. I have been digging for awhile but I am coming up short on what I need to adjust to get this to run properly.
sudo bash will allow you to connect as root on your EC2 Amazon Linux instance.
I would question why do you want to run NodeJS on port 80, the best practice would have a load balancer in front of your instance to accept HTTPS calls and relay to whatever port nodejs will run on your instance, in a private subnet.
I would suggest to read this doc to learn how to do this : https://aws.amazon.com/getting-started/projects/deploy-nodejs-web-app/