Make Node Server Restart Proof - node.js

What I have now is a node server (with forever.js in Ubuntu 14.04 LTS) which is needed to start each time server PC starts.
So, to do that what we need is this command (every time PC start or restarts)-
forever start /var/www/websocket/websocket.js
If I run this command in direct command line, it works fine.
But I want it automatically start when server PC turn on or restart.
So what I have done (according to https://stackoverflow.com/a/13388741/2193439 ) is-
Run crontab -e and put this code in the console-
#reboot forever start /var/www/websocket/websocket.js
like this-
And to check my corn log, I have done this-
sudo grep --color -i cron /var/log/syslog
And found something like this-
But I am finding the server is not running by this-
forever list
and having - No forever processes running
But if I run this-
forever start /var/www/websocket/websocket.js
And then run this-
forever list
Then I am having this-
And I am confirming you that crontab is also running because if I change this-
#reboot forever start /var/www/websocket/websocket.js
To this-
#reboot cd /var/www/websocket/ && touch cron_try.txt
I am having the file each time PC restarts.
I have already tried this-
Automatically start forever (node) on system restart
Automatically restart node server
http://www.hacksparrow.com/make-forever-reboot-proof-with-cron.html
https://github.com/foreverjs/forever/issues/58
And this-
cronjob does not execute a script that works fine standalone
Is almost my problem. But I had set it during reboot and for Node forever.js.
So it does not solve my problem.
Can anyone please help?

I have solved this by this way-
First, find the forever location by this-
which forever
And get this-
/usr/local/bin/forever
And then put this path in crontab like this-
#reboot /usr/local/bin/forever start /var/www/websocket/websocket.js
And we are done :)

Related

Start nodejs app on linux server with ssh-if i close the ssh connection,app stopped why?)

Start nodejs app on linux server with ssh(if i close the ssh connection,app stopped why?)
1-create nodejs app -its oke
2-run on linux server -its oke(i stop the apache server)
But if i close the ssh connection(with my windows pc),app stopped.How can i solve this problem?
The most correct thing to do is to write a service file for it so whatever init system you have (likely systemd) will keep it running and manage the start/stop/restart stuff for you.
Failing that (and I don't blame you...) you can run it within the screen utility. Launch it with screen -d -m /path/to/start/script and then you can come back later and reconnect to it with screen -r or screen -r <pid of the screen session>.
Note that launching it that way won't restart it, etc. To do that, you could do something like
#!/bin/sh
while true
do
sleep 3s
/path/to/start/script
done
And call that with the screen command.
Use the nohup command to start the application. Like:
nohup THE_COMMAND_YOU_DONT_WANT_TO_STOP_WHEN_YOU_LOGOUT &
With nodemon it might be helpful to put the command to start the server in a file called myserver.sh containing:
nodemon server.js
Make sure the file is executable:
chmod +x myserver.js
And then run
nohup myserver.sh &

Crontab forever start in production mode

I'm running Ghost blog on a MEAN stack. I'm using forever to keep the blog alive after starting it. I've also setup crontab to launch the forever start command on server reboot.
I can't work out how to get it to start in production mode with crontab.
If I did this straight into the command line, I'd do this:
NODE_ENV=production forever start index.js
That works great, but the following line in my crontab ignores the production mode part and starts it in development mode:
#reboot NODE_ENV=production /usr/local/bin/forever start /path/to/blog/index.js
If you want to set the environment variable for all lines, do it like this:
NODE_ENV=production
#reboot /usr/local/bin/forever start /path/to/blog/index.js
Unfortunately you need to make a .sh to set it per line.

Bash script for Ghost blog not starting up on server reboot

I have a very simple bash script which should launch my ghost blog. I am using crontab to launch the script on startup, here is the crontab command I am running:
#reboot /var/www/ghost/launch.sh
The script has the following code:
#!/bin/sh
ps auxw | grep apache2 | grep -v grep > /dev/null
if [ $? != 0 ]
then
NODE_ENV=production forever start --sourceDir /var/www/ghost index.js
fi
When I sudo reboot the server, and use forever list to find the processes running, I see the following:
data: [0] sHyo /usr/bin/nodejs index.js 1299 1314 /home/webadmin/.forever/sHyo.log 0:0:1:25.957
When I nano to that log file, the log says the following:
^[[31m
ERROR:^[[39m ^[[31mCould not locate a configuration file.^[[39m
^[[37m/home/webadmin^[[39m
^[[32mPlease check your deployment for config.js or config.example.js.^[[39m
Error: Could not locate a configuration file.
at checkTemplate (/var/www/ghost/core/config-loader.js:16:36)
at Object.cb [as oncomplete] (fs.js:168:19)
error: Forever detected script was killed by signal: null
It appears to be looking in /home/webadmin/, but ghost is installed at /var/www/ghost????
When I run the exact same script in the terminal manually after the sever has started up by ssh-ing into the server, the script works fine. I run: cd /var/www/ghost/ and then ./launch.sh and the ghost blog appears and is working fine. The log for that forever process says the following:
^[[32mGhost is running...^[[39m
Your blog is now available on http://blog.example.com ^[[90m
Ctrl+C to shut down^[[39m
What is wrong with my script or crontab that it cannot launch the script properly?
I run: cd /var/www/ghost/ and then ./launch.sh and the ghost blog appears and is working fine.
That's the thing, your cron job is not doing the same:
#reboot /var/www/ghost/launch.sh
This script is executed from your home directory. One way to fix is to change your crontab:
#reboot cd /var/www/ghost; ./launch.sh
Another way is to add this line near the top of launch.sh, anywhere before launching forever:
# change to the directory of this script
cd $(dirname "$0")
Just an FYI for anybody that runs across this I would highly suggest looking into pm2 to start Ghost and to monitor Ghost. It will monitor Ghost like Forever and has a built in feature to generate a init script to start pm2 when your server restarts. Also has better features to monitor Ghost while it is running. Check out my how to here.

Cannot get my Upstart script to run Node.js and Forever when server restarts

I've been setting up my server recently and today I had to restart it... then I realised all of my Node apps I had running weren't running anymore. I'm using Node Forever module to keep the apps running, but then I realised I still need to have them starting when my server restarts or shut downs and powers up again.
I have been researching the best way to do this, but what I'm trying just doesn't seem to work. I've created an Upstart script in my /etc/init/ folder on my Ubuntu Server 10.04LTS remote server and tried restarting and it doesn't seem to do anything. Nothing is getting listed when I run forever list.
Here is my current Upstart script I was trying out today:
#/etc/init/myapp.conf
start on (local-filesystems and net-device-up IFACE=eth0)
stop on shutdown
script
exec sudo /usr/local/bin/node /var/www/myapp/myapp.forever.js
end script
I use Forever in a Node script as I find it easier to configure it how I want. It's confirmed that the script runs just fine if I do this outside the script, there is just something wrong with the Upstart script itself. It seems to have the same permissions as all the other Upstart scripts in /etc/init/ folder.
As an additional note, I have gone through almost all the answers I could find here on StackOverflow, and that it how I got together the script that I have at present.
UPDATE:
With Tom's answer, I have now tried:
#/etc/init/myapp.conf
start on (local-filesystems and net-device-up IFACE=eth0)
stop on shutdown
exec sudo /usr/local/bin/node /var/www/myapp/myapp.forever.js
But it's still not working.
So I don't know why this isn't running when I restart my server. Please help!
This is not a very happy setup. The way upstart works is that it starts your process running it using the process id for the start command. Forever JS works similarly, it is probably inspired by Upstart.
When you try to run forever.js with upstart, the forever process you create in your upstart script exits immediately after starting. Upstart counts on having the process continue to run.
When I tried to run forever using upstart, I wound up with five different forever process running because upstart thought it had failed to start forever, and it retried five times.
Did you try doing it without the start script lines?
description "my server"
author "name"
start on (local-filesystems and net-device-up IFACE=eth0)
stop on shutdown
#respawn if you were not using forever
exec sudo /usr/local/bin/node myapp.forever.js
Source: http://caolanmcmahon.com/posts/deploying_node_js_with_upstart
I've opted to use an #reboot statement in the user's crontab file, which will execute forever on server restarts.
#reboot forever start app.js
Additional Reading - http://www.cyberciti.biz/faq/linux-execute-cron-job-after-system-reboot/

How to run node.js app forever when console is closed?

I connect to my remote server via ssh. Then I start my node.js app with Forever. Everything works fine until I close my console window. How to run node.js app FOREVER on my remote server even when I close my connection via ssh? I just want to start an app and shut down my copmputer. My app should be working in the background on my remote server.
You may also want to consider using the upstart utility. It will allow you to start, stop and restart you node application like a service. Upstart can configured to automatically restart your application if it crashes.
Install upstart:
sudo apt-get install upstart
Create a simple script for your application that will look something like:
#!upstart
description "my app"
start on started mountall
stop on shutdown
# Automatically Respawn:
respawn
respawn limit 99 5
env NODE_ENV=production
exec node /somepath/myapp/app.js >> /var/log/myapp.log 2>&1
Then copy the script file (myapp.conf) to /etc/init and make sure its marked as executable. Your application can then be managed using the following commands:
sudo start myapp
sudo stop myapp
sudo restart myapp
Two answers: One for Windows, one for *nix:
On Windows, you can use the start command to start the process disconnected from your instance of cmd.exe:
start node example.js
On *nix, there are two aspects of this: Disconnecting the process from the console, and making sure it doesn't receive the HUP signal ("hang up"), which most processes (including Node) will respond to by terminating. The former is possibly optional, but the latter is necessary.
Starting disconnected from the console is easy: Usually, you just put an ampersand (&) at the end of the command line:
# Keep reading, don't just grab this and use it
node example.js &
But the above doesn't protect the process from HUP signals. The program may or may not receive HUP when you close the shell (console), depending on a shell option called huponexit. If huponexit is true, the process will receive HUP when the shell exits and will presumably terminate.
huponexit defaults to false on the various Linux variants I've used, and in fact I happily used the above for years until coderjoe and others helped me understand (in a very long comment stream under the answer that may have since been deleted) that I was relying on huponexit being false.
To avoid the possibility that huponexit might be true in your environment, explicitly use nohup. nohup runs the process immune from HUP signals. You use it like this:
nohup node example.js > /dev/null &
or
nohup node example.js > your-desired-filename-or-stream-here &
The redirection is important; if you don't do it, you'll end up with a nohup.out file containing the output from stdout and stderr. (By default, nohup redirects stderr to stdout, and if stdout is outputting to a terminal, it redirects that to nohup.out. nohup also redirects stdin if it's receiving from a terminal, so we don't have to do that. See man nohup or info coreutils 'nohup invocation' for details.)
In general for these things, you want to use a process monitor so that if the process crashes for some reason, the monitor restarts it, but the above does work for simple cases.
I would definitely recommend pm2
npm install -g pm2
To start server: pm2 start [yourServerFile.js]
To stop server: pm2 stop [yourServerFile.js]
Close client and server will run forever....will also restart if app crashes.
Ive been running a node server on Ubuntu for months with zero issues
Always, simple is the best, no need upstart, no need forever, just nohup:
nohup node file.js &
Believe me, I'm running so that for my case!
You could install forever using npm like this:
sudo npm install -g forever
Or as a service:
forever start server.js
Or stop service
forever stop server.js
To list all running processes:
forever list
node expamle.js & for example
In Linux, SSH into your remote server and run
screen
to launch into a new screen.
Finally, type ctrlad to detach the screen session without killing the process.
More info here.
I had similar issue and I think using forever will help to handle crashed and restarts
You can install forever globally:
sudo nom install -g forever
And run this command:
nohup forever server.js &
This should handle all the trouble of closing the terminal, closing ssh session, node crashes and restarts.
If you're running node.js in a production environment, you should consider using PM2, forever.js, or Nodemon.
There is no shortage of articles online comparing the different packages.
This is only a partial answer for Windows. I’ve created a single line Visual Basic Script called app.vbs that will start your node application within a hidden window:
CreateObject("Wscript.Shell").Run "node app.js", 0
To execute it automatically at startup, open the %AppData%\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\Startup\ directory and add a shortcut to the app.vbs file.
More info at: https://keestalkstech.com/2016/07/start-nodejs-app-windowless-windows/
Wow, I just found a very simple solution:
First, start your process (node app)
forever dist/index.js
run: ^Z cmd + z.
Then: bg. Yeah.. bg (background).
And pum.. you are out.
Finish with exitif you are with sshor just close the terminal.
my start.sh file:
#/bin/bash
nohup forever -c php artisan your:command >>storage/logs/yourcommand.log 2>&1 &
There is one important thing only. FIRST COMMAND MUST BE "nohup", second command must be "forever" and "-c" parameter is forever's param, "2>&1 &" area is for "nohup". After running this line then you can logout from your terminal, relogin and run "forever restartall" voilaa... You can restart and you can be sure that if script halts then forever will restart it.
I <3 forever

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