sudo pm2 command node found pm2 already isntalled - node.js

I have created node application and I want to deploy it on AWS.
I have setup project and want to make node permanent so I have installed pm2 globally, but when I tried to start node app with pm2 with this command
sudo pm2 start index.js
It's giving me error:
sudo:pm2 is not a command
Without sudo I can't start server.

Apparently pm2, and other global modules aren't in your root path. You can pass the PATH variable like this:
sudo env PATH=$PATH pm2 start index.js
This should do what you want.
Though mainly I would suggest not doing this, as probably you wouldn't want your application to run with root user, rather it's own isolated and limited user so in case vulnerabilities, the damage would be limited.
If you want to run pm2 on your machine startup, then you can use pm2 startup command which will instruct you how to do this properly.
Also if you are running your application as root, so you can listen on port 80, then that's the wrong way. I suggest have a look at this question. There are some good suggestions such as using ip tables to forwad port 80 traffic to another port which wouldn't require your application running on root.

Related

Correct command for running node.js project with pm2 in ApplicationStart hook

I want to set up ApplicationStart hook for node.js project where pm2 is used as a process manager in aws ec2 server.
I checked some tutorials and the shell script for ApplicationStart hook contains commands for running the project by using:
node/npm
pm2
for example in this tutorial, the shell script contains:
npm start
pm2 start npm --name "covidapp" -- start
in this tutorial, the shell script contains:
pm2 start npm --name "myApp"
node app.js > app.out.log 2> app.err.log < /dev/null &
Why we are running the project two times? Why we just don't use pm2?
I've deployed several apps on EC2 using PM2 and in my experience there should be no need (or benefit) to use node app.js, npm start or similar.
As you are probably already guessing, the whole point of PM2 is to run the process(es).
My recommendation would be to create a PM2 ecosystem configuration with all needed configurations, number of processes, ENV vars etc. I personally prefer this way even when running only one single node application on the server.
https://pm2.keymetrics.io/docs/usage/application-declaration/
And start the process(es) using the configuration, eg.:
pm2 start ecosystem.config.js
I also recommend using PM2 startup generator to make sure PM2 is started on server reboot: pm2 startup
https://pm2.keymetrics.io/docs/usage/startup/
Once you have the startup script generated. Start your processes using pm2 manually or by using a configuration file (see example above). Verify with pm2 status that all processes are running as expected and execute pm2 save to "snapshot" the current state. The saved state will now automatically respawn on reboot.

Is there any way to manage node.js server from web interface?

I am in need to manage my node server without entering into server console. I have tried using forever, nodemon and pm2 npms. Whenever, I need to start or stop the node application, I need to connect the server via terminal. I want to avoid that and willing to see the possibility if that can be managed through any web interface or any browser plugin/extension.
Already tried forever, nodemon and pm2
You can use npm pm2-gui install it by this command npm i pm2-gui
See the docs and guides from here https://www.npmjs.com/package/pm2-gui
I started looking for some GUI and Web interface of PM2. Tried several npms but "mc-pm2-web" worked really good for me.
I am using Node via NVM and my node version was v10.15.3. Installed this https://www.npmjs.com/package/mc-pm2-web and it was straight forward what I was actually looking for.
Here's are the step if anybody wants to install and configure "mc-pm2-web" in AWS EC2.
I am using Amazon Linux
I am using NVM and running v10.15.3
Already had NGINX & PHP-FPM running on server using port 9000
pm2 already installed
Visit this link:
https://www.npmjs.com/package/mc-pm2-web
npm install -g pm2-web
pm2-web
If you encountered any error then you may check your config.json file. In my case the config file path was:
/home/ec2-user/.nvm/versions/node/v10.15.3/bin/pm2-web/config.json
I made following changes in config file to make it working:
Port from 9000 to 9010 because 9000 was being used by PHP-FPM
Changed the host name from "localhost" to "my-domain" which was already hosted in NGINX
Enabled authentication and set the Username and Password for making it secure
Allowed 9010 port from AWS EC2 firewall / security group of that instance
Added pm2-web in pm2 by executing "pm2 start pm2-web" command

How to deploy a NodeJS app without root access, so it stays online after server restarts?

I'm trying to deploy my NodeJS app. I tried npm forever and pm2, but I believe that my hoster restarts the server every night because my app is always offline the next day.
The thing is, that I have a shared hosting server on A2hosting and don't have root access, so these sudo commands don't work here... except you know how I can change that, haha...
I don't know what infos I need to provide for you to help me... so if you need to know something, tell me please!
Thank you so much!
I've used pm2 to do that.
npm install -g pm2
then you run the following command to ensure pm2 will run on startup:
pm2 startup
It will show you the command you have to run.
Finally, you initiate the process:
pm2 start server.js --name <service-name>
Freeze your process list:
pm2 save
More details on pm2 documentation: https://github.com/Unitech/pm2

Amazon EC2 NodeJS server stops itself after 2 days even after using sudo nohup

I have my app running on http://talkwithstranger.com/ and I have deployed it on AWS EC2. I use this command
sudo nohup node index.js &
To continue running my Node JS server even if I close my terminal and exit my SSH.
However, after 2 days everytime I wake up and I find out that the node server itself stops automatically. I checked the running processes by using
ps -ef
and my node script is not there.
Google Chrome say site DNS not found, because NodeJS Express is not running of course to serve my html file, but why it stops itself?
What is causing this unexpected shutdown of my server after every 2 days? I have to manually run nohup again to run it again.
Does nohup has a time to expire or something ?
You should run node.js using a service / process manager. You can use something basic such as forever or supervisord but I would actually advise you to take a look at PM2.
It can do a lot of things - one of them being that it manages your process, makes sure it keeps running, restarts it when it fails, manages the logs, etc. You can also have it autostart when you restart the server.
It becomes really powerful in combination with https://pm2.io, because this enables you to monitor your server's metrics such as CPU and memory remotely and see whether exceptions happened, and much more (such as even remotely updating the software by pulling from git). However, they no longer offer a free plan unfortunately - their plans now start at $79/month, which is a pity. But don't worry, the PM2 application itself is still free and open source, only the monitoring costs money.
Basic usage of PM2:
npm install -g pm2
...to install PM2.
pm2 start my_script.js
Starts a script and lets it run in background.
pm2 status
Shows the status of any running scripts.
pm2 restart all
Restarts all running scripts.
pm2 kill
Stops all scripts and completely shuts down the PM2 daemon.
pm2 monit
Monitors CPU/RAM usage and shows it.
pm2 logs
Shows the last 20 output and error log lines and starts streaming live logs to the console. The logs are stored in the folder ~/.pm2/logs.
Using PM2, your script will not stop - at most, it will restart. And if it does you will be able to more easily understand why because you can easily access logs and watch what happenes with memory usage, etc.
Extra tips:
To avoid filling up the harddisk with logfiles, I recommend installing the module pm2-logrotate:
pm2 install pm2-logrotate
To automatically launch PM2 with the same script on startup when the server starts, you can first save the current configuration:
pm2 save
...and then use the following command to install a startup script - follow the instructions displayed, which will be different based on the exact OS you are using:
pm2 startup
To use PM2 in a more advanced way with multiple processes, custom environment variables, etc., take a look at ecosystem files.
You can try forever.Install using the following command.
npm install -g forever
Then just start forever:
forever start index.js
Another better option for production use is pm2.You can install pm2 with below command
npm install -g pm2
# or
yarn global add pm2
start server
pm2 start index.js
The best thing is you can achieve load balancing with pm2(utilize all available CPU)
pm2 start index.js -i max
For more info, you can visit pm2 documentation page.

How do I leave Node.js server on EC2 running forever?

As you can tell by my question, I'm new to this...
I built my first website, I set up my first Node.js server to serve it and then pushed everything live on EC2.
I tested everything on my EC2 IP address and everything seems to be working.
Now up until now, I've been testing my app locally so it makes sense that whenever I closed the terminal, app.js would stop running so nothing would be served on localhost.
Now that my server is on EC2, the same thing happens ("obviously" one could say..) whenever I close my terminal.
So my question is how do I keep my Node.js server running on EC2 for like... forever..so that my site stays live.. forever :)
I read something about a node module called "forever" but I'm wondering (being new and all..) why isn't this "forever" functionality a default setting of the Node.js-EC2 system ?
I mean, correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't the whole point of setting up a web server and pushing it live to have it stay live forever? Isn't that what servers are supposed to do anyway (infinitely listening for requests) ? And if that's the case why do we need extra modules/settings to achieve that ?
Thanks for your help.. As you can tell I'm not only looking for a solution but an explanation as well because I got really confused.. :-)
EDIT (a few details you might need) - After installing my app on EC2 these are the steps that I follow on the terminal (The app is running on Amazon Linux by the way) :
I type ssh -i xxxxxxxxxxx.pem ec2-user#ec2-xx-xx-xx-x.eu-west-1.compute.amazonaws.com on the
terminal
After logging onto the Amazon machine I then go to the relevant folder and execute node app.js
There are 3 folders in the machine : node, node_modules and *name of my app*
app.js resides in *name of my app*
After that, the site goes live on my EC2 IP
Once I close the terminal, everything is switched off
Before you invoke Node.js, run the command:
screen
This will create a persistent environment which will allow your process to keep running after you disconnect.
When you reconnect, you can use this command to reconnect to that environment:
screen -r
Here's a random link to learn more about screen:
http://www.rackaid.com/blog/linux-screen-tutorial-and-how-to/
However, this won't help you if your EC2 instance restarts. There are many different ways to do that. Adding your startup command to /etc/rc.local is one way. Here's a link to an Amazon guide which includes adding something to /etc/rc.local.
http://docs.aws.amazon.com/AWSEC2/latest/UserGuide/building-shared-amis.html
I worked with the valid answer for a while but some times the screen just end with no reason also screen has no balance loader and others features that in a production enviroment you should care , Currently I use a npm component to do this job.
https://www.npmjs.com/package/pm2
This is so easy to use.
$ npm install pm2 -g
then just start your app with pm2 like this
$ pm2 start app.js
In the above link you can find diferents tasks to perform if you need.
Hope this help the newbies like me.
There's a better way. Use forever.js.
See it here: https://github.com/foreverjs/forever
This is a nice tutorial for how to use chkconfig with forever on CENTOS.
http://aronduby.com/starting-node-forever-scripts-at-boot-w-centos/
Or use tmux
Just Enter a tmux screen run node server
Ctrl+b Hit D and you're done.
I am very late to join the thread and seems its basic problem with every newbie. Follow the below to setup properly your first server.
follow the step on the ec2 instance(before doing this make sure you have a start script for pm2 in your package.json file):
npm install pm2 -g
pm2 startup systemd
See the output and at the last line it must be like..
You have to run this command as root. Execute the following command:
sudo env PATH=$PATH:/usr/bin /usr/lib/node_modules/pm2/bin/pm2 startup
systemd -u sammy --hp /home/sammy
Take the last line command and run again with root privilege.
(before running the next command, Provide a new start script for pm2 in your package.json file e.g: "pm2-start": "pm2 start ./bin/www")
npm run pm2-start
for more info follow the link.
https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tutorials/how-to-set-up-a-node-js-application-for-production-on-ubuntu-16-04
If you are using a Ubuntu EC2, better to use the following we have been using this for the past 6 years and have had no issues with this.
sudo npm i -g forever
Now start your main, example
forever start index.js
forever start src/server.js
To stop the server use the following command
forever stop index.js
To list multiple servers running forever
forever listall

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