How do I run a node js app as a background service

Question

Since this post has gotten a lot of attention over the years  I ve listed the top solutions per platform at the bottom of this post     Original post   I want my node js server to run in the background  i e   when I close my terminal I want my server to keep running  I ve googled this and came up with this tutorial  however it doesn t work as intended  So instead of using that daemon script  I thought I just used the output redirection  the 2 gt  amp 1  gt  gt  file part   but this too does not exit - I get a blank line in my terminal  like it s waiting for output errors   I ve also tried to put the process in the background  but as soon as I close my terminal the process is killed as well   So how can I leave it running when I shut down my local computer     Top solutions    Systemd  Linux  Launchd  Mac  node-windows  Windows  PM2  Node js

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If you simply want to run the script uninterrupted until it completes you can use nohup as already mentioned in the answers here. However, none of the answers provide a full command that also logs stdin and stdout.

nohup node index.js >> app.log 2>&1 &

The >> means append to app.log.
2>&1 makes sure that errors are also send to stdout and added to the app.log.
The ending & makes sure your current terminal is disconnected from command so you can continue working.

If you want to run a node server (or something that should start back up when the server restarts) you should use systemd / systemctl.

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To round out the various options suggested  here is one more  the daemon command in GNU Linux  which you can read about here  http   libslack org daemon manpages daemon 1 html   apologies if this is already mentioned in one of the comments above

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You can use Forever  A simple CLI tool for ensuring that a given node script runs continuously  i e  forever   https   www npmjs org package forever

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This might not be the accepted way  but I do it with screen  especially while in development because I can bring it back up and fool with it if necessary   screen node myserver js  gt  gt CTRL-A then hit D   The screen will detach and survive you logging off  Then you can get it back back doing screen -r  Hit up the screen manual for more details  You can name the screens and whatnot if you like

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Copying my own answer from How do I run a Node js application as its own process  2015 answer  nearly every Linux distro comes with systemd  which means forever  monit  PM2  etc are  no longer necessary - your OS already handles these tasks  Make a myapp service file  replacing  myapp  with your app s name  obviously    Unit  Description My app   Service  ExecStart  var www myapp app js Restart always User nobody   Note Debian Ubuntu uses  nogroup   RHEL Fedora uses  nobody  Group nogroup Environment PATH  usr bin  usr local bin Environment NODE ENV production WorkingDirectory  var www myapp   Install  WantedBy multi-user target  Note if you re new to Unix   var www myapp app js should have    usr bin env node on the very first line and have the executable mode turned on chmod  x myapp js  Copy your service file into the  etc systemd system  Start it with systemctl start myapp  Enable it to run on boot with systemctl enable myapp  See logs with journalctl -u myapp This is taken from How we deploy node apps on Linux  2018 edition  which also includes commands to generate an AWS DigitalOcean Azure CloudConfig to build Linux node servers  including the  service file

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If you are running OSX  then the easiest way to produce a true system process is to use launchd to launch it   Build a plist like this  and put it into the  Library LaunchDaemons with the name top-level-domain your-domain application plist  you need to be root when placing it     lt  xml version  1 0  encoding  UTF-8   gt   lt  DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC  -  Apple  DTD PLIST 1 0  EN   http   www apple com DTDs PropertyList-1 0 dtd  gt   lt plist version  1 0  gt   lt dict gt       lt key gt Label lt  key gt       lt string gt top-level-domain your-domain application lt  string gt        lt key gt WorkingDirectory lt  key gt       lt string gt  your preferred workingdirectory lt  string gt        lt key gt ProgramArguments lt  key gt       lt array gt           lt string gt  usr local bin node lt  string gt           lt string gt your-script-file lt  string gt       lt  array gt        lt key gt RunAtLoad lt  key gt       lt true  gt        lt key gt KeepAlive lt  key gt       lt true  gt    lt  dict gt   lt  plist gt    When done  issue this  as root    launchctl load  Library LaunchDaemons top-level-domain your-domain application plist launchctl start top-level-domain your-domain application   and you are running   And you will still be running after a restart   For other options in the plist look at the man page here  https   developer apple com library mac documentation Darwin Reference Manpages man5 launchd plist 5 html

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PM2 is a production process manager for Node js applications with a built-in load balancer  It allows you to keep applications alive forever  to reload them without downtime and to facilitate common system admin tasks  https   github com Unitech pm2

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Try to run this command if you are using nohup -   nohup npm start 2 gt  dev null 1 gt  dev null amp    You can also use forever to start server   forever start -c  npm start        PM2 also supports npm start  pm2 start npm -- start

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If you are using pm2  you can use it with autorestart set to false        pm2 ecosystem   This will generate a sample ecosystem config js   module exports       apps                script     scripts companies js         autorestart  false                     script     scripts domains js         autorestart  false                     script     scripts technologies js         autorestart  false                       pm2 start ecosystem config js

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Check out fugue  Apart from launching many workers  you can demonize your node process too   http   github com pgte fugue

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I use Supervisor for development  It just works  When ever you make changes to a  js file Supervisor automatically restarts your app with those changes loaded   Here s a link to its Github page  Install       sudo npm install supervisor -g   You can easily make it watch other extensions with -e  Another command I use often is -i to ignore certain folders   You can use nohup and supervisor to make your node app run in the background even after you log out      sudo nohup supervisor myapp js  amp

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UPDATE - As mentioned in one of the answers below  PM2 has some really nice functionality missing from forever   Consider using it   Original Answer  Use nohup   nohup node server js  amp    EDIT I wanted to add that the accepted answer is really the way to go   I m using forever on instances that need to stay up   I like to do npm install -g forever so it s in the node path and then just do forever start server js

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If you are running nodejs in linux server  I think this is the best way    Create a service script and copy to  etc init nodejs conf  start service  sudo service nodejs start  stop  service  sudo service nodejs stop  Sevice script  description  DManager node js server - Last Update  2012-08-06  author       Pedro Muniz - pedro muniz geeklab com br   env USER  nodejs   you have to create this user  env APPNAME  nodejs   you can change the service name env WORKDIR   home  lt project-home-dir gt    set your project home folder here env COMMAND   usr bin node  lt server name gt    app js      used to be  start on startup   until we found some mounts weren t ready yet while booting  start on started mountall stop on shutdown    Automatically Respawn  respawn respawn limit 99 5  pre-start script     sudo -u  USER echo    date -u   Y- m- dT T  3NZ    sys  Starting   gt  gt   var log  APPNAME log end script  script       Not sure why  HOME is needed  but we found that it is      export HOME   lt project-home-dir gt     set your project home folder here     export NODE PATH   lt project node path gt         log file  grant permission to nodejs user     exec start-stop-daemon --start --make-pidfile --pidfile  var run  APPNAME pid --chuid  USER --chdir  WORKDIR --exec  COMMAND  gt  gt   var log  APPNAME log 2 gt  amp 1 end script  post-start script      Optionally put a script here that will notifiy you node has  re started       root bin hoptoad sh  node js has started   end script  pre-stop script     sudo -u  USER echo    date -u   Y- m- dT T  3NZ    sys  Stopping   gt  gt   var log  APPNAME log end script

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For people using newer versions of the daemon npm module - you need to pass file descriptors instead of strings   var fs   require  fs    var stdoutFd   fs openSync  output log    a    var stderrFd   fs openSync  errors log    a    require  daemon         stdout  stdoutFd       stderr  stderrFd

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I am surprised that nobody has mentioned Guvnor  I have tried forever  pm2  etc  But  when it comes to solid control and web based performance metrics  I have found Guvnor to be by far the best  Plus  it is also fully opensource     Edit   However  I am not sure if it works on windows  I ve only used it on linux

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has anyone noticed a trivial mistaken of the position of  2  amp 1     2 gt  amp 1  gt  gt  file   should be    gt  gt  file 2 gt  amp 1

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use nssm the best solution for windows  just download nssm  open cmd to nssm directory and type  nssm install  lt service name gt   lt node path gt   lt app js path gt    eg  nssm install myservice  C  Program Files nodejs   C  myapp app js     this will install a new windows service which will be listed at services msc from there you can start or stop the service  this service will auto start and you can configure to restart if it fails

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I am simply using the daemon npm module   var daemon   require  daemon     daemon daemonize       stdout     log log      stderr     log error log           node pid    function  err  pid      if  err        console log  Error starting daemon   n   err       return process exit -1         console log  Daemonized successfully with pid      pid         Your Application Code goes here       Lately I m also using mon 1  from TJ Holowaychuk to start and manage simple node apps

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UPDATE  i updated to include the latest from pm2   for many use cases  using a systemd service is the simplest and most appropriate way to manage a node process  for those that are running numerous node processes or independently-running node microservices in a single environment  pm2 is a more full featured tool   https   github com unitech pm2  http   pm2 io   it has a really useful monitoring feature -  pretty  gui  for command line monitoring of multiple processes with pm2 monit or process list with pm2 list organized Log management -  pm2 logs other stuff         Behavior configuration   Source map support   PaaS Compatible   Watch  amp  Reload   Module System   Max memory reload   Cluster Mode   Hot reload   Development workflow   Startup Scripts   Auto completion   Deployment workflow   Keymetrics monitoring   API

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I use tmux for a multiple window pane development environment on remote hosts  It s really simple to detach and keep the process running in the background  Have a look at tmux

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The accepted answer is probably the best production answer  but for a quick hack doing dev work  I found this   nodejs scriptname js  amp  didn t work  because nodejs seemed to gobble up the  amp   and so the thing didn t let me keep using the terminal without scriptname js dying   But I put nodejs scriptname js in a  sh file  and nohup sh startscriptname sh  amp  worked   Definitely not a production thing  but it solves the  I need to keep using my terminal and don t want to start 5 different terminals  problem

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This answer is quite late to the party  but I found that the best solution was to write a shell script that used the both the screen -dmS and nohup commands    screen -dmS newScreenName nohup node myserver js  gt  gt  logfile log   I also add the  gt  gt  logfile bit on the end so I can easily save the node console log   statements    Why did I use a shell script  Well I also added in an if statement that checked to see if the node myserver js process was already running   That way I was able to create a single command line option that both lets me keep the server going and also restart it when I have made changes  which is very helpful for development

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Since I m missing this option in the list of provided answers I d like to add an eligible option as of 2020  docker or any equivalent container platform  In addition to ensuring your application is working in a stable environment there are additional security benefits as well as improved portability   There is docker support for Windows  macOS and most major Linux distributions  Installing docker on a supported platform is rather straight-forward and well-documented  Setting up a Node js application is as simple as putting it in a container and running that container while making sure its being restarted after shutdown   Create Container Image  Assuming your application is available in  home me my-app on that server  create a text file Dockerfile in folder  home me my-app with content similar to this one   FROM node lts-alpine COPY  my-app  app CMD    app server js     Create the image using command like this   docker build -t myapp-as-a-service  home me   Note  Last parameter is selecting folder containing that Dockerfile instead of the Dockerfile itself  You may pick a different one using option -f   Start Container  Use this command for starting the container   docker run -d --restart always -p 80 3000 myapp-as-a-service   This command is assuming your app is listening on port 3000 and you want it to be exposed on port 80 of your host   This is a very limited example for sure  but it s a good starting point

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Node js as a background service in WINDOWS XP   Kudos goes to Hacksparrow at  http   www hacksparrow com install-node-js-and-npm-on-windows html for tutorial installing Node js   npm for windows  Kudos goes to Tatham Oddie at  http   blog tatham oddie com au 2011 03 16 node-js-on-windows  for nnsm exe implementation    Installation    Install WGET http   gnuwin32 sourceforge net packages wget htm via installer executable Install GIT http   code google com p msysgit downloads list via installer executable Install NSSM http   nssm cc download  page download via copying nnsm exe into  windir  system32 folder Create c  node helloworld js     http   howtonode org hello-node var http   require  http    var server   http createServer function  request  response        response writeHead 200    Content-Type    text plain         response end  Hello World n        server listen 8000   console log  Server running at http   127 0 0 1 8000      Open command console and type the following  setx only if Resource Kit is installed   C  node gt  set path  PATH   CD  C  node gt  setx path   PATH   C  node gt  set NODE PATH  C  Program Files nodejs node modules  C  node gt  git config --system http sslcainfo  bin curl-ca-bundle crt     C  node gt  git clone --recursive git   github com isaacs npm git     C  node gt  cd npm     C  node npm gt  node cli js install npm -gf    C  node gt  cd        C  node gt  nssm exe install node-helloworld  C  Program Files nodejs node exe  c  node helloworld js     C  node gt  net start node-helloworld  A nifty batch goodie is to create c  node ServiceMe cmd   echo off nssm exe install node-  n1  C  Program Files nodejs node exe    s1 net start node-  n1 pause    Service Management    The services themselves are now accessible via Start-  Run-  services msc or via Start- Run-  MSCONFIG-  Services  and check  Hide All Microsoft Services    The script will prefix every node made via the batch script with  node-   Likewise they can be found in the registry   HKLM SYSTEM CurrentControlSet Services node-xxxx

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June 2017 Update  Solution for Linux   Red hat    Previous comments doesn t work for me  This works for me on Amazon Web Service - Red Hat 7   Hope this works for somebody out there   A  Create the service file  sudo vi  etc systemd system myapp service  Unit  Description Your app After network target   Service  ExecStart  home ec2-user meantodos start sh WorkingDirectory  home ec2-user meantodos    Install  WantedBy multi-user target     B  Create a shell file  home ec2-root meantodos start sh    bin sh - sudo iptables -t nat -A PREROUTING -p tcp --dport 80 -j REDIRECT --to 8080 npm start  then  chmod  rx  home ec2-root meantodos start sh  to make this file executable      C  Execute the Following  sudo systemctl daemon-reload sudo systemctl start myapp sudo systemctl status myapp   If there are no errors  execute below   Autorun after server restarted   chkconfig myapp -add

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2016 Update  The node-windows mac linux series uses a common API across all operating systems  so it is absolutely a relevant solution  However  node-linux generates systemv init files  As systemd continues to grow in popularity  it is realistically a better option on Linux  PR s welcome if anyone wants to add systemd support to node-linux  -   Original Thread   This is a pretty old thread now  but node-windows provides another way to create background services on Windows  It is loosely based on the nssm concept of using an exe wrapper around your node script  However  it uses winsw exe instead and provides a configurable node wrapper for more granular control over how the process starts stops on failures  These processes are available like any other service     The module also bakes in some event logging     Daemonizing your script is accomplished through code  For example   var Service   require  node-windows   Service      Create a new service object var svc   new Service     name  Hello World     description   The nodejs org example web server      script   C   path  to  my  node  script js          Listen for the  install  event  which indicates the    process is available as a service  svc on  install  function      svc start            Listen for the  start  event and let us know when the    process has actually started working  svc on  start  function      console log svc name   started  nVisit http   127 0 0 1 3000 to see it in action             Install the script as a service  svc install      The module supports things like capping restarts  so bad scripts don t hose your server  and growing time intervals between restarts   Since node-windows services run like any other  it is possible to manage monitor the service with whatever software you already use   Finally  there are no make dependencies  In other words  a straightforward npm install -g node-windows will work  You don t need Visual Studio   NET  or node-gyp magic to install this  Also  it s MIT and BSD licensed   In full disclosure  I m the author of this module  It was designed to relieve the exact pain the OP experienced  but with tighter integration into the functionality the Operating System already provides  I hope future viewers with this same question find it useful

[node.js] How do I run a node.js app as a background service?

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