[node.js] How to make a node.js application run permanently?

On a Debian server, I installed Node.js. I understand how to launch an app from putty with this command line:

node /srv/www/MyUserAccount/server/server.js

and get to it on the address 50.51.52.53:8080 (IP and port).

But as soon as I close putty, then I cannot reach the address 50.51.52.53:8080 anymore.

How to make a Node.js application run permanently?

As you can guess, I am a beginner with Linux and Node.js.

This question is related to node.js server

The answer is


No need to install any other package.

Run this command

node server.js > stdout.txt 2> stderr.txt &

server.js is your server file or it can be api.js

After that hit "exit" to close terminal

exit

Forever is a very good NodeJs module to do exactly that.

Install forever by typing in the command line

$ npm install forever -g

Then use the following command to run a node.js script

$ forever start /path/to/script.js

You are good to go. Additionally you can run

$ forever list

to see all the running scripts. You can terminate any specific script by typing

$ forever stop [pid]

where [pid] is the process ID of the script you will obtain from the list command. To stop all scripts, you may type

$ forever stopall

I'd recommend looking for something such as Forever to restart Node in the event of a crash, and handle daemonizing this for you.


Another way is creating a system unit for your app. create a "XXX.service" file in "/etc/systemd/system" folder, similar to this:

[Unit]
Description=swagger
After=network.target

[Service]
ExecStart=/usr/bin/http-server /home/swagger/swagger-editor &
WorkingDirectory=/home/swagger
Restart=always
RestartSec=30

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

A benefit is the app will run as a service, it automatically restarts if it crashed.

You can also use sytemctl to manage it:

systemctl start XXX to start the service, systemctl stop XXX to stop it and systemctl enable XXX to automatically start the app when system boots.


nohup working i checked in AWS Ubunto vm follow the correct syntax

ubuntu@ip-172-00-00-00:~/ms$ nohup node server.js &

then press enter you will see this line

ubuntu@ip-172-00-00-00:~/ms$ nohup: ignoring input and appending output to ‘nohup.out’

then type this

rm nohup.out

enter image description here


I recommend use PM2, which is a process manager for Node.js applications. PM2 provides an easy way to manage and daemonize applications (run them as a service).

refer this link - https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tutorials/how-to-set-up-a-node-js-application-for-production-on-centos-7


During development, I recommend using nodemon. It will restart your server whenever a file changes. As others have pointed out, Forever is an option but in production, it all depends on the platform you are using. You will typically want to use the operating system's recommended way of keeping services up (e.g. http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/systemd/).


You could install forever using npm like this:

sudo npm install -g forever

And then start your application with:

forever server.js

Or as a service:

forever start server.js

Forever restarts your app when it crashes or stops for some reason. To restrict restarts to 5 you could use:

forever -m5 server.js

To list all running processes:

forever list

Note the integer in the brackets and use it as following to stop a process:

forever stop 0

Restarting a running process goes:

forever restart 0

If you're working on your application file, you can use the -w parameter to restart automatically whenever your server.js file changes:

forever -w server.js

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]

Here's an upstart solution I've been using for my personal projects:

Place it in /etc/init/node_app_daemon.conf:

description "Node.js Daemon"
author      "Adam Eberlin"

stop on shutdown

respawn
respawn limit 3 15

script
  export APP_HOME="/srv/www/MyUserAccount/server"
  cd $APP_HOME
  exec sudo -u user /usr/bin/node server.js
end script

This will also handle respawning your application in the event that it crashes. It will give up attempts to respawn your application if it crashes 3 or more times in less than 15 seconds.


forever package worked for me, just one thing, it depends on deep-equal, so if you had issue with installing it like:

npm -g install forever

Try:

npm -g install forever [email protected]

instead.


If you just want to run your node app in the terminal always, just use screen.

Install on ubuntu/ debian:

sudo apt-get install screen

Usage:

$ screen
$ node /path/to/app.js

ctrl + a and then ctrl + d to dismiss

To get is back:

One screen: screen -r

If there's more than one you can list all the screens with: screen -ls

And then: screen -r pid_number


You could simply use this

nohup node /srv/www/MyUserAccount/server/server.js &

This will keep the application running and to shut it down you will have to kill it.

For that you could install htop and then search for node and then kill it


Try pm2 to make your application run forever.

npm install -g pm2

and then use

pm2 start server.js

to list and stop apps, use commnds

pm2 list

pm2 stop 0


I hope this will help you.

At the command line, install forever:

npm install forever -g

Create an example file:

sudo nano server.js 

You can edit the file and get results directly in your browser.
You can use filezilla or any editor to edit the file. Run this command to run the file:

forever start --minUptime 1 --spinSleepTime 1000 -w server.js

enter image description here


I’ve found forever to do the job perfectly fine.

Assuming you already have npm installed, if not, just do

sudo apt-get install npm

Then install forever

npm install forever --global

Now you can run it like this

forever start app.js

https://codingweb.io/run-nodejs-application-background/


First install pm2 globally

npm install -g pm2

then start

pm2 start bin/www 

Installation

$ [sudo] npm install forever -g

You can use forever to run scripts continuously

forever start server.js

forever list

for stop service

forever stop server.js