Connection refused

Drupal message log gives:

Error reaching the Node.js server at "nodejs/health/check": [-111] Connection refused.

Pretty sure there isn't enough in the documentation to get this working; plus going through issue queue i see many "answers" which contradict other answers (like where to install nodejs). So this is what i have; perhaps you can fill in the missing pieces.

- drupal-node.js installed using npm at account root (not drupal root, not drupal module folder)
- ~/node_modules/drupal-node.js/nodejs.config.js looks like this:

settings = {
  scheme: 'http',
  port: 8080,
  host: 'localhost',
  resource: '/socket.io',
  serviceKey: 'XXXXX',
  backend: {
    port: 80,
    host: 'athleteos.liquidcms.org',
    scheme: 'http',
    basePath: '/',
    messagePath: '/nodejs/message'
  },
  debug: false,
  sslKeyPath: '',
  sslCertPath: '',
  sslCAPath: '',
  baseAuthPath: '/nodejs/',
  extensions: [],
  clientsCanWriteToChannels: false,
  clientsCanWriteToClients: false,
  transports: ['websocket', 'polling'],
  jsMinification: true,
  jsEtag: true,
  logLevel: 1
};

config in Drupal looks like:

host: localhost
port: 8080
service key: XXXXX