How to run Node js as a background process and never die

Question

I connect to the linux server via putty SSH  I tried to run it as a background process like this     node server js  amp    However  after 2 5 hrs the terminal becomes inactive and the process dies   Is there anyway I can keep the process alive even with the terminal disconnected     Edit 1  Actually  I tried nohup  but as soon as I close the Putty SSH terminal or unplug my internet  the server process stops right away    Is there anything I have to do in Putty     Edit 2  on Feb  2012   There is a node js module  forever  It will run node js server as daemon service

User · Answer

To run command as a system service on debian with sysv init:

Copy skeleton script and adapt it for your needs, probably all you have to do is to set some variables. Your script will inherit fine defaults from /lib/init/init-d-script, if something does not fits your needs - override it in your script. If something goes wrong you can see details in source /lib/init/init-d-script. Mandatory vars are DAEMON and NAME. Script will use start-stop-daemon to run your command, in START_ARGS you can define additional parameters of start-stop-daemon to use.

cp /etc/init.d/skeleton /etc/init.d/myservice
chmod +x /etc/init.d/myservice
nano /etc/init.d/myservice

/etc/init.d/myservice start
/etc/init.d/myservice stop

That is how I run some python stuff for my wikimedia wiki:

...
DESC="mediawiki articles converter"
DAEMON='/home/mss/pp/bin/nslave'
DAEMON_ARGS='--cachedir /home/mss/cache/'
NAME='nslave'
PIDFILE='/var/run/nslave.pid'
START_ARGS='--background --make-pidfile --remove-pidfile --chuid mss --chdir /home/mss/pp/bin'

export PATH="/home/mss/pp/bin:$PATH"

do_stop_cmd() {
    start-stop-daemon --stop --quiet --retry=TERM/30/KILL/5 \
        $STOP_ARGS \
        ${PIDFILE:+--pidfile ${PIDFILE}} --name $NAME
    RETVAL="$?"
    [ "$RETVAL" = 2 ] && return 2
    rm -f $PIDFILE
    return $RETVAL
}

Besides setting vars I had to override do_stop_cmd because of python substitutes the executable, so service did not stop properly.

User · Answer

This is an old question  but is high ranked on Google  I almost can t believe on the highest voted answers  because running a node js process inside a screen session  with the  amp  or even with the nohup flag -- all of them -- are just workarounds   Specially the screen tmux solution  which should really be considered an amateur solution  Screen and Tmux are not meant to keep processes running  but for multiplexing terminal sessions  It s fine  when you are running a script on your server and want to disconnect  But for a node js server your don t want your process to be attached to a terminal session  This is too fragile  To keep things running you need to daemonize the process   There are plenty of good tools to do that   PM2  http   pm2 keymetrics io     basic usage   npm install pm2 -g   pm2 start server js    you can even define how many processes you want in cluster mode    pm2 start server js -i 4    you can start various processes  with complex startup settings   using an ecosystem json file  with env variables  custom args  etc     pm2 start ecosystem json   One big advantage I see in favor of PM2 is that it can generate the system startup script to make the process persist between restarts     pm2 startup  platform    Where platform can be ubuntu centos redhat gentoo systemd darwin amazon   forever js  https   github com foreverjs forever    basic usage   npm install forever -g   forever start app js    you can run from a json configuration as well  for   more complex environments or multi-apps   forever start development json   Init scripts   I m not go into detail about how to write a init script  because I m not an expert in this subject and it d be too long for this answer  but basically they are simple shell scripts  triggered by OS events  You can read more about this here  Docker   Just run your server in a Docker container with -d option and  voil    you have a daemonized node js server   Here is a sample Dockerfile  from node js official guide    FROM node argon    Create app directory RUN mkdir -p  usr src app WORKDIR  usr src app    Install app dependencies COPY package json  usr src app  RUN npm install    Bundle app source COPY    usr src app  EXPOSE 8080 CMD    npm    start      Then build your image and run your container     docker build -t  lt your username gt  node-web-app     docker run -p 49160 8080 -d  lt your username gt  node-web-app   Hope this helps somebody landing on this page  Always use the proper tool for the job  It ll save you a lot of headaches and over hours

User · Answer

I have this function in my shell rc file  based on  Yoichi s answer   nohup-template               1           amp  amp  echo  Example usage  nnohup-template urxvtd   amp  amp  return 0     nohup   1   gt   dev null 2 gt  amp 1  amp      You can use it this way   nohup-template  command you would execute here

User · Answer

Nohup and screen offer great light solutions to running Node js in the background  Node js process manager  PM2  is a handy tool for deployment  Install it with npm globally on your system    npm install pm2 -g  to run a Node js app as a daemon   pm2 start app js  You can optionally link it to Keymetrics io a monitoring SAAS made by Unitech

User · Answer

You really should try to use screen  It is a bit more complicated than just doing nohup long running  amp   but understanding screen once you never come back again    Start your screen session at first   user host    screen   Run anything you want   wget http   mirror yandex ru centos 4 6 isos i386 CentOS-4 6-i386-binDVD iso   Press ctrl A and then d  Done  Your session keeps going on in background   You can list all sessions by screen -ls  and attach to some by screen -r 20673 pts-0 srv command  where 0673 pts-0 srv is an entry list

User · Answer

Have you read about the nohup command

User · Answer

nohup node server js  gt   dev null 2 gt  amp 1  amp    nohup means  Do not terminate this process even when the stty is cut off   gt   dev null means  stdout goes to  dev null  which is a dummy device that does not record any output    2 gt  amp 1 means  stderr also goes to the stdout  which is already redirected to  dev null   You may replace  amp 1 with a file path to keep a log of errors  e g   2 gt  tmp myLog  amp  at the end means  run this command as a background task

User · Answer

disown node server js  amp    It will remove command from active task list and send the command to background

User · Answer

For Ubuntu i use this       exec PROG SH  amp    dev null  amp     regards

User · Answer

Apart from cool solutions above I d mention also about supervisord and monit tools which allow to start process  monitor its presence and start it if it died  With  monit  you can also run some active checks like check if process responds for http request

User · Answer

Try this for a simple solution  cmd  amp  exit

User · Answer

Simple solution  if you are not interested in coming back to the process  just want it to keep running     nohup node server js  amp    There s also the jobs command to see an indexed list of those backgrounded processes  And you can kill a backgrounded process by running kill  1 or kill  2 with the number being the index of the process   Powerful solution  allows you to reconnect to the process if it is interactive     screen   You can then detach by pressing Ctrl a d and then attach back by running screen -r  Also consider the newer alternative to screen  tmux

User · Answer

another solution disown the job    nohup node server js  amp   1  1711   disown -h  1

User · Answer

nohup will allow the program to continue even after the terminal dies   I have actually had situations where nohup prevents the SSH session from terminating correctly  so you should redirect input as well     nohup node server js  lt  dev null  amp    Depending on how nohup is configured  you may also need to redirect standard output and standard error to files

[node.js] How to run Node.js as a background process and never die?

Examples related to node.js

Examples related to linux

Examples related to background-process