Automatically start forever node on system restart

Question

I am using node s forever module to keep my node server running  Forever however terminates when there is a system restart  Is there any way I can automatically start the node server  with forever  when the system restarts

User · Answer

You can use forever-service for doing this.

npm install -g forever-service
forever-service install test

This will provision app.js in the current directory as a service via forever. The service will automatically restart every time system is restarted. Also when stopped it will attempt a graceful stop. This script provisions the logrotate script as well.

Github url: https://github.com/zapty/forever-service

NOTE: I am the author of forever-service.

User · Answer

Copied answer from the attached question   You can use PM2  it s a production process manager for Node js applications with a built-in load balancer    Install PM2    npm install pm2 -g   Start an application    pm2 start app js   If you using express then you can start your app like  pm2 start   bin www --name  app    Listing all running processes     pm2 list   It will list all process  You can then stop   restart your service by using ID or Name of the app with following command     pm2 stop all                     pm2 stop 0                       pm2 restart all                  To display logs     pm2 logs   all  app name app id

User · Answer

I wrote a script that does exactly this   https   github com chovy node-startup  I have not tried with forever  but you can customize the command it runs  so it should be straight forward    etc init d node-app start  etc init d node-app restart  etc init d node-app stop

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The problem with rc local is that the commands are accessed as root which is different than logging to as a user and using sudo    I solved this problem by adding a  sh script with the startup commands i want to etc profile d  Any  sh file in profile d will load automatically and any command will be treated as if you used the regular sudo    The only downside to this is the specified user needs to loggin for things to start which in my situation was always the case

User · Answer

I tried lots of the above answers  None of them worked for me  My app is installed in  home and as user  not as root  This probably means that when the above mentioned start scripts run   home is not mounted yet  so the app is not started   Then I found these instructions by Digital Ocean    https   www digitalocean com community tutorials how-to-use-pm2-to-setup-a-node-js-production-environment-on-an-ubuntu-vps  Using PM2 as explained was very simple and works perfectly  My virtual servers had two physical crashes since - downtime was only about a minute

User · Answer

Install PM2 globally using NPM  npm install pm2 -g Start your script with pm2  pm2 start app js generate an active startup script  pm2 startup  NOTE  pm2 startup is for startting the PM2 when the system reboots  PM2 once started  restarts all the processes it had been managing before the system went down     In case you want to disable the automatic startup  simply use pm2 unstartup  If you want the startup script to be executed under another user  just use the -u  lt username gt  option and the --hp  lt user home gt

User · Answer

You need to create a shell script in the  etc init d folder for that  It s sort of complicated if you never have done it but there is plenty of information on the web on init d scripts   Here is a sample a script that I created to run a CoffeeScript site with forever       bin bash     initd-example      Node init d      chkconfig  345    description  Script to start a coffee script application through forever   processname  forever coffeescript node   pidfile   var run forever-initd-hectorcorrea pid    logfile   var run forever-initd-hectorcorrea log     Based on a script posted by https   gist github com jinze at https   gist github com 3748766       Source function library     lib lsb init-functions   pidFile  var run forever-initd-hectorcorrea pid  logFile  var run forever-initd-hectorcorrea log   sourceDir  home hectorlinux website coffeeFile app coffee scriptId  sourceDir  coffeeFile   start         echo  Starting  scriptId         This is found in the library referenced at the top of the script     start daemon        Start our CoffeeScript app through forever       Notice that we change the PATH because on reboot       the PATH does not include the path to node        Launching forever or coffee with a full path       does not work unless we set the PATH      cd  sourceDir     PATH  usr local bin  PATH     NODE ENV production PORT 80 forever start --pidFile  pidFile -l  logFile -a -d --sourceDir  sourceDir  -c coffee  coffeeFile      RETVAL       restart         echo -n  Restarting  scriptId       usr local bin forever restart  scriptId     RETVAL       stop         echo -n  Shutting down  scriptId       usr local bin forever stop  scriptId     RETVAL       status         echo -n  Status  scriptId       usr local bin forever list     RETVAL        case   1  in     start          start                stop          stop                status          status                restart          restart                           echo  Usage    start stop status restart           exit 1            esac exit  RETVAL   I had to make sure the folder and PATHs were explicitly set or available to the root user since init d scripts are ran as root

User · Answer

Forever was not made to get node applications running as services  The right approach is to either create an  etc inittab entry  old linux systems  or an upstart  newer linux systems    Here s some documentation on how to set this up as an upstart  https   github com cvee node-upstart

User · Answer

You can use the following command in your shell to start your node forever   forever app js   my node script   You need to keep in mind that the server on which your app is running should always be kept on

User · Answer

I would suggest using crontab   It s easy to use   How to   To start editing run the following replacing the  testuser  with your desired runtime user for the node process   If you choose a different user other than yourself  you will have to run this with sudo     crontab -u testuser -e  If you have never done this before  it will ask you which editor you wish to edit with   I like vim  but will recommend nano for ease of use  Once in the editor add the following line    reboot  usr local bin forever start  your path to your app js  Save the file   You should get some feedback that the cron has been installed  For further confirmation of the installation of the cron  execute the following  again replacing  testuser  with your target username  to list the currently installed crons     crontab -u testuser -l     Note that in my opinion  you should always use full paths when executing binaries in cron  Also  if the path to your forever script is not correct  run which forever to get the full path   Given that forever calls node  you may also want to provide the full path to node    reboot  usr local bin forever start -c  usr local bin node  your path to your app js   Further Reading   crontab Man Page Ubuntu Cron HowTo

User · Answer

An alternative crontab method inspired by this answer and this blog post   1  Create a bash script file  change bob to desired user    vi  home bob node server init sh   2  Copy and paste this inside the file you ve just created      bin sh  export NODE ENV production export PATH  usr local bin  PATH forever start  node server path server js  gt   dev null   Make sure to edit the paths above according to your config   3  Make sure the bash script can be executed   chmod 700  home bob node server init sh   4  Test the bash script   sh  home bob node server init sh   5  Replace  bob  with the runtime user for node   crontab -u bob -e   6  Copy and paste  change bob to desired user     reboot  bin sh  home bob node server init sh   Save the crontab   You ve made it to the end  your prize is a reboot  to test

User · Answer

This case is valid for Debian     Add the following to  etc rc local   usr bin sudo -u   user    usr local bin forever start   app path       user   replaces your username     app path   replaces your app path  For example   var www test app js

User · Answer

Use the PM2 Which is the best option to run the server production server What are the advantages of running your application this way   PM2 will automatically restart your application if it crashes   PM2 will keep a log of your unhandled exceptions - in this case  in a file at  home safeuser  pm2 logs app-err log   With one command  PM2 can ensure that any applications it manages restart when the server reboots  Basically  your node application will start as a service    ref  https   www digitalocean com community tutorials how-to-use-pm2-to-setup-a-node-js-production-environment-on-an-ubuntu-vps

User · Answer

complete example crontab  located at  etc crontab         bin bash    edit this file with    crontab -u root -e   view this file with    crontab -u root -l    put your path here if it differs PATH  root bin  root  local bin  usr local sbin  usr local bin  usr sbin  usr bin  sbin  bin  snap bin              echo  executes once every minute   gt   root deleteme   reboot cd  root bible-api-dbt-server  npm run forever   reboot cd  root database-api-server  npm run forever   reboot cd  root mailer-api-server  npm run forever

User · Answer

crontab does not work for me on CentOS x86 6 5   reboot seems to be not working    Finally I got this solution   Edit   etc rc local  sudo vi  etc rc local   Add this line to the end of the file  Change USER NAME and PATH TO PROJECT to your own  NODE ENV production means the app runs in production mode  You can add more lines if you need to run more than one node js app   su - USER NAME -c  NODE ENV production  usr local bin forever start  PATH TO PROJECT app js    Don t set NODE ENV in a separate line  your app will still run in development mode  because forever does not get NODE ENV     WRONG  su - USER NAME -c  export NODE ENV production    Save and quit vi  press ESC   w q return   You can try rebooting your server  After your server reboots  your node js app should run automatically  even if you don t log into any account remotely via ssh   You d better set NODE ENV environment in your shell  NODE ENV will be set automatically when your account USER NAME logs in   echo export NODE ENV production  gt  gt     bash profile   So you can run commands like forever stop start  PATH TO PROJECT app js via ssh without setting NODE ENV again

[node.js] Automatically start forever (node) on system restart

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