UPSTART script non root not working - linux

Question

I'm trying to run a nodejs application using upstart as a non root user.
But somehow parts of the script will not run : for instance:
if I run it like a root user(below example) NODE_ENV never gets called/set
the only way to called is with "sudo initctl stop pdcapp"
sudo nameofApp start|stop would not work
When called sudo initctl stop nameofApp the pre-stop script will not echo to the log file
if I try to runit like a non root user it would not even start
isn't a more cleaner easier way of doing this (systemd) I've looked a various tutorials around and apparently this is how they've doneit. so what am I missing here?
This is the .conf file under /etc/init/
env FULL_PATH="/srv/pd/sept011100/dev"
env NODE_PATH="/usr/local/nodeJS/bin/node"
env NODE_ENV=production
start on filesystem or runlevel [2345]
stop on [!2345]
script
export NODE_ENV #this variable is never set
echo $$ > /var/run/PD.pid
cd $FULL_PATH
# the command below will not work
#exec sudo -u nginx "$NODE_PATH server.js >> /var/log/PD/pdapp.log 2>&1"
exec $NODE_PATH server.js >> /var/log/PD/pdapp.log 2>&1
end script
pre-start script
echo "[`date`] (sys) Starting" >> /var/log/PD/pdapp.log
end script
pre-stop script
rm /var/run/pdapp.pid
echo "[`date`] (sys) Stopping" >> /var/log/PDC/pdapp.log
end script
in /var/log/messages I get this when I stop the application, otherwise I get nothing in the logfile
Sep 2 18:23:14 547610-redhat-dev2 init: pdcapp pre-stop process (6903) terminated with status 1
Sep 2 18:23:14 547610-redhat-dev2 init: pdcapp main process (6899) terminated with status 143
any Ideas why is this not working I'm running redhat 6.5

Answer 1

Red Hat has a super old version of Upstart that is probably full of bugs because they never contributed to Upstart, despite using it (Fedora switched to systemd right after RHEL 6 was released, before they even really tried it out well).