NodeJS Not Exiting, How to find open handlers? - node.js

I have a fairly simple NodeJS script that is not exiting gracefully when done (this is a worker and I want to fire it up using a cron job / heroku scheduler)
Once it has finished its task it just sits there waiting. It doesn't use express / a web server etc and as far as I can tell I have resolved all callbacks.
Is there some way to tell what node is still working on / what handlers are open?
My imported libraries are
Request, Q & Mongoose.

You definitely need to close the mongodb connections that mongoose has open on your behalf by calling mongoose.disconnect(). Have you tried that?

Related

Flush all active requests to mongodb from node before closing

I want to finish all active requests to mongodb from node when I need to gracefully shutdown the application (control+c / exceptions). I have tried using the .close method, which closes the connection just fine, but does not seem to wait for active requests to complete. The solutions I have seen appear to just keep a counter of live requests. Is there a more elegant solution to this problem?

Why node.js server doesn't exit after script done?

Why node.js app created as a web server via http.createServer doesn't exit after end as simple console.log() app?
Is it because there is a forever while true {} cycle somewhere in http module?
Deep in the internals of Node.js there is bookkeeping being done. The number of active event listeners is being counted. Events and event-driven programming model are what make Node.js special. Events are also the life blood that keep a Node.js program alive.
A Node.js program will keep running as long as there are active event listeners present. After the last event listener has finished or otherwise terminated the Node.js program will also terminate.
For more details
GO HERE
This is the core of node, that while waiting for new connections, to not exit. Without using loops
There are many other ways, to keep node running, without forever while. For example:
window.setTimeout(function(){},10000000)

Is there a way to run a node task in a child process?

I have a node server, which needs to:
Serve the web pages
Keep querying an external REST API and save data to database and send data to clients for certain updates from REST API.
Task 1 is just a normal node tasks. But I don't know how to implement the task 2. This task won't expose any interface to outside. It's more like a background task.
Can anybody suggest? Thanks.
To make a second node.js app that runs at the same time as your first one, you can just create another node.js app and then run it from your first one using child_process.spawn(). It can regularly query the external REST API and update the database as needed.
The part about "Send data to clients for certain updates from REST API" is not so clear what you're trying to do.
If you're using socket.io to send data to connected browsers, then the browsers have to be connected to your web server which I presume is your first node.js process. To have the second node.js process cause data to be sent through the socket.io connections in the first node.js process, you need some interprocess way to communicate. You can use stdout and stdin via child_process.spawn(), you can use some feature in your database or any of several other IPC methods.
Because querying a REST API and updating a database are both asynchronous operations, they don't take much of the CPU of a node.js process. As such, you don't really have to do these in another node.js process. You could just have a setInterval() in your main node.js process, query the API every once in a while, update the database when results are received and then you can directly access the socket.io connections to send data to clients without having to use a separate process and some sort of IPC mechanism.
Task 1:
Express is good way to accomplish this task.
You can explore:
http://expressjs.com/
Task 2:
If you are done with Expressjs. Then you can write your logic with in Express Framework.
This task then can be done with node module forever. Its a simple tool that runs your background scripts forever. You can use forever to run scripts continuously (whether it is written in node.js or not)
Have a look:
https://github.com/foreverjs/forever

Where should a mongodb process be started for a node application

I want my application server(Hapi/Express) to start the mongodb process before proceeding with server.start(). A good way to do this is via Promises so that the mongod return code can be captured in .then and checked for start success/failure.
I posted a similar question # Nodejs exec mongodb command in Bluebird Promise, that prompted me to ask this one here.
You seem to not understand the basics of processes.
so that the mongod return code can be captured in .then
mongod will not return any code until it exits (it's called "exit code" for a reason). I assume that you want your mongodb running, so this means no code for you.
Starting a database server from the application is absolutely the wrong way to do it. Database and application should be started separately (by OS' startup manager or whatever). If you install mongodb from a package, the auto-startup should be handled for you (via installing proper init script).
Application should only know a connection string (and if it can't connect to the database at this string, show some pretty error message).

restart nodejs server programmatically

User case:
My nodejs server start with a configuration wizard that allow user to change the port and scheme. Even more, update the express routes
Question:
Is it possible to apply the such kind of configuration changes on the fly? restart the server can definitely bring all the changes online but i'm not sure how to trigger it from code.
Changing core configuration on the fly is rarely practiced. Node.js and most http frameworks do not support it neither at this point.
Modifying configuration and then restarting the server is completley valid solution and I suggest you to use it.
To restart server programatically you have to execute logics outside of the node.js, so that this process can continue once node.js process is killed. Granted you are running node.js server on Linux, the Bash script sounds like the best tool available for you.
Implementation will look something like this:
Client presses a switch somewhere on your site powered by node.js
Node.js then executes some JavaScript code which instructs your OS to execute some bash script, lets say it is script.sh
script.sh restarts node.js
Done
If any of the steps is difficult, ask about it. Though step 1 is something you are likely handling yourself already.
I know this question was asked a long time ago but since I ran into this problem I will share what I ended up doing.
For my problem I needed to restart the server since the user is allowed to change the port on their website. What I ended up doing is wrapping the whole server creation (https.createServer/server.listen) into a function called startServer(port). I would call this function at the end of the file with a default port. The user would change port by accessing endpoint /changePort?port=3000. That endpoint would call another function called restartServer(server,res,port) which would then call the startServer(port) with the new port then redirect user to that new site with the new port.
Much better than restarting the whole nodejs process.

Resources