Automatically start forever (node) on system restart - node.js

I am using node's forever module to keep my node server running. Forever however terminates when there is a system restart. Is there any way I can automatically start the node server (with forever) when the system restarts?

I would suggest using crontab. It's easy to use.
How to
To start editing run the following replacing the "testuser" with your desired runtime user for the node process. If you choose a different user other than yourself, you will have to run this with sudo.
$ crontab -u testuser -e
If you have never done this before, it will ask you which editor you wish to edit with. I like vim, but will recommend nano for ease of use.
Once in the editor add the following line:
#reboot /usr/local/bin/forever start /your/path/to/your/app.js
Save the file. You should get some feedback that the cron has been installed.
For further confirmation of the installation of the cron, execute the following (again replacing "testuser" with your target username) to list the currently installed crons:
$ crontab -u testuser -l
Note that in my opinion, you should always use full paths when executing binaries in cron.
Also, if the path to your forever script is not correct, run which forever to get the full path.
Given that forever calls node, you may also want to provide the full path to node:
#reboot /usr/local/bin/forever start -c /usr/local/bin/node /your/path/to/your/app.js
Further Reading
crontab Man Page
Ubuntu Cron HowTo

You can use forever-service for doing this.
npm install -g forever-service
forever-service install test
This will provision app.js in the current directory as a service via forever. The service will automatically restart every time system is restarted. Also when stopped it will attempt a graceful stop. This script provisions the logrotate script as well.
Github url: https://github.com/zapty/forever-service
NOTE: I am the author of forever-service.

Install PM2 globally using NPM
npm install pm2 -g
Start your script with pm2
pm2 start app.js
generate an active startup script
pm2 startup
NOTE: pm2 startup is for startting the PM2 when the system reboots. PM2 once started, restarts all the processes it had been managing before the system went down.
In case you want to disable the automatic startup, simply use pm2 unstartup
If you want the startup script to be executed under another user, just use the -u <username> option and the --hp <user_home>:

This case is valid for Debian.
Add the following to /etc/rc.local
/usr/bin/sudo -u {{user}} /usr/local/bin/forever start {{app path}}
{{user}} replaces your username.
{{app path}} replaces your app path. For example, /var/www/test/app.js

An alternative crontab method inspired by this answer and this blog post.
1. Create a bash script file (change bob to desired user).
vi /home/bob/node_server_init.sh
2. Copy and paste this inside the file you've just created.
#!/bin/sh
export NODE_ENV=production
export PATH=/usr/local/bin:$PATH
forever start /node/server/path/server.js > /dev/null
Make sure to edit the paths above according to your config!
3. Make sure the bash script can be executed.
chmod 700 /home/bob/node_server_init.sh
4. Test the bash script.
sh /home/bob/node_server_init.sh
5. Replace "bob" with the runtime user for node.
crontab -u bob -e
6. Copy and paste (change bob to desired user).
#reboot /bin/sh /home/bob/node_server_init.sh
Save the crontab.
You've made it to the end, your prize is a reboot (to test) :)

Copied answer from the attached question.
You can use PM2, it's a production process manager for Node.js applications with a built-in load balancer.
Install PM2
$ npm install pm2 -g
Start an application
$ pm2 start app.js
If you using express then you can start your app like
pm2 start ./bin/www --name="app"
Listing all running processes:
$ pm2 list
It will list all process. You can then stop / restart your service by using ID or Name of the app with following command.
$ pm2 stop all
$ pm2 stop 0
$ pm2 restart all
To display logs
$ pm2 logs ['all'|app_name|app_id]

You need to create a shell script in the /etc/init.d folder for that. It's sort of complicated if you never have done it but there is plenty of information on the web on init.d scripts.
Here is a sample a script that I created to run a CoffeeScript site with forever:
#!/bin/bash
#
# initd-example Node init.d
#
# chkconfig: 345
# description: Script to start a coffee script application through forever
# processname: forever/coffeescript/node
# pidfile: /var/run/forever-initd-hectorcorrea.pid
# logfile: /var/run/forever-initd-hectorcorrea.log
#
# Based on a script posted by https://gist.github.com/jinze at https://gist.github.com/3748766
#
# Source function library.
. /lib/lsb/init-functions
pidFile=/var/run/forever-initd-hectorcorrea.pid
logFile=/var/run/forever-initd-hectorcorrea.log
sourceDir=/home/hectorlinux/website
coffeeFile=app.coffee
scriptId=$sourceDir/$coffeeFile
start() {
echo "Starting $scriptId"
# This is found in the library referenced at the top of the script
start_daemon
# Start our CoffeeScript app through forever
# Notice that we change the PATH because on reboot
# the PATH does not include the path to node.
# Launching forever or coffee with a full path
# does not work unless we set the PATH.
cd $sourceDir
PATH=/usr/local/bin:$PATH
NODE_ENV=production PORT=80 forever start --pidFile $pidFile -l $logFile -a -d --sourceDir $sourceDir/ -c coffee $coffeeFile
RETVAL=$?
}
restart() {
echo -n "Restarting $scriptId"
/usr/local/bin/forever restart $scriptId
RETVAL=$?
}
stop() {
echo -n "Shutting down $scriptId"
/usr/local/bin/forever stop $scriptId
RETVAL=$?
}
status() {
echo -n "Status $scriptId"
/usr/local/bin/forever list
RETVAL=$?
}
case "$1" in
start)
start
;;
stop)
stop
;;
status)
status
;;
restart)
restart
;;
*)
echo "Usage: {start|stop|status|restart}"
exit 1
;;
esac
exit $RETVAL
I had to make sure the folder and PATHs were explicitly set or available to the root user since init.d scripts are ran as root.

Use the PM2
Which is the best option to run the server production server
What are the advantages of running your application this way?
PM2 will automatically restart your application if it crashes.
PM2 will keep a log of your unhandled exceptions - in this case, in a file at /home/safeuser/.pm2/logs/app-err.log.
With one command, PM2 can ensure that any applications it manages restart when the server reboots. Basically, your node application will start as a service.
ref: https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tutorials/how-to-use-pm2-to-setup-a-node-js-production-environment-on-an-ubuntu-vps

Forever was not made to get node applications running as services. The right approach is to either create an /etc/inittab entry (old linux systems) or an upstart (newer linux systems).
Here's some documentation on how to set this up as an upstart:
https://github.com/cvee/node-upstart

crontab does not work for me on CentOS x86 6.5. #reboot seems to be not working.
Finally I got this solution:
Edit: /etc/rc.local
sudo vi /etc/rc.local
Add this line to the end of the file. Change USER_NAME and PATH_TO_PROJECT to your own. NODE_ENV=production means the app runs in production mode. You can add more lines if you need to run more than one node.js app.
su - USER_NAME -c "NODE_ENV=production /usr/local/bin/forever start /PATH_TO_PROJECT/app.js"
Don't set NODE_ENV in a separate line, your app will still run in development mode, because forever does not get NODE_ENV.
# WRONG!
su - USER_NAME -c "export NODE_ENV=production"
Save and quit vi (press ESC : w q return). You can try rebooting your server. After your server reboots, your node.js app should run automatically, even if you don't log into any account remotely via ssh.
You'd better set NODE_ENV environment in your shell. NODE_ENV will be set automatically when your account USER_NAME logs in.
echo export NODE_ENV=production >> ~/.bash_profile
So you can run commands like forever stop/start /PATH_TO_PROJECT/app.js via ssh without setting NODE_ENV again.

I wrote a script that does exactly this:
https://github.com/chovy/node-startup
I have not tried with forever, but you can customize the command it runs, so it should be straight forward:
/etc/init.d/node-app start
/etc/init.d/node-app restart
/etc/init.d/node-app stop

The problem with rc.local is that the commands are accessed as root which is different than logging to as a user and using sudo.
I solved this problem by adding a .sh script with the startup commands i want to etc/profile.d. Any .sh file in profile.d will load automatically and any command will be treated as if you used the regular sudo.
The only downside to this is the specified user needs to loggin for things to start which in my situation was always the case.

I tried lots of the above answers. None of them worked for me. My app is installed in /home and as user, not as root. This probably means that when the above mentioned start scripts run, /home is not mounted yet, so the app is not started.
Then I found these instructions by Digital Ocean:
https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tutorials/how-to-use-pm2-to-setup-a-node-js-production-environment-on-an-ubuntu-vps
Using PM2 as explained was very simple and works perfectly: My virtual servers had two physical crashes since - downtime was only about a minute.

complete example crontab (located at /etc/crontab) ..
#!/bin/bash
# edit this file with .. crontab -u root -e
# view this file with .. crontab -u root -l
# put your path here if it differs
PATH=/root/bin:/root/.local/bin:/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/sbin:/bin:/snap/bin
# * * * * * echo "executes once every minute" > /root/deleteme
#reboot cd /root/bible-api-dbt-server; npm run forever;
#reboot cd /root/database-api-server; npm run forever;
#reboot cd /root/mailer-api-server; npm run forever;

I have found my own solution by using serve & npm as follows:
Install serve package: npm install -g serve
Then have the command serve -s /var/www/sitename to execute on reboot.
This is what works for me on my VPS.

You can use the following command in your shell to start your node forever:
forever app.js //my node script
You need to keep in mind that the server on which your app is running should always be kept on.

Related

Running forever for NodeJs from rc.local

I want NodeJs server to start at boot and be sure it stays up if it crashes with forever.
I've read a lot of posts on how to do it and the possible issues associated with it.
The problem is that I have a limited memory available on given machine so I'm forced to "contain" NodeJs.
Reading the forever documentation I found out that it can be done using the command:
forever start -c "node --max_old_space_size=512" myapp.js
In this way forever calls the node server passing the memory argument which, in this case, limits the heap to 512 MB.
So I wrote my sh script for rc.local like this:
#!/bin/sh
cd /forever_bin_dir
./forever start -c "node --max_old_space_size=512" /myapp_dir/myapp.js
Since rc.local works with limited environmental variables, "node" can't be find and the script fails.
I even tried with Cron adding to its file the line:
#reboot /forever_bin_dir/forever start -c "node --max_old_space_size=512" /myapp_dir/myapp.js
But the same issue persist.
My question is: how can i run forever at boot time passing at the same time the argument about memory ?
I found this init script used for same purpose starting Node script forever.
The best way I found It's just setting the PATH inside a script.
I created a sh script in the home folder called launchforever.sh
I got the environmental variables using the #printenv command.
The launchforever script is something like this:
#!/bin/sh
export PATH=<copied from printenv>:$PATH
forever start -c "node --max_old_space_size=30" > /dev/null
After saving I gave it the permissions:
#chmod 700 /home/<user>/launchforever.sh
Then I added it to Cron:
#crontab -u <user> -e
And inside its file I added:
#reboot /home/<user>/launchforever.sh

bash doesn't load node on remote ssh command

Excuse me if the subject is vague, but I tried to describe my problem to the best of my possibilities. I have my raspberry pi which I want to deploy to using codeship. Rsyncing the files works perfectly, but when I am to restart my application using pm2 my problem occurs.
I have installed node and pm2 using the node version manager NVM.
ssh pi#server.com 'source /home/pi/.bashrc; cd project; pm2 restart app.js -x -- --prod'0 min 3 sec
bash: pm2: command not found
I have even added:
shopt -s expand_aliases in the bottom of my bashrc but it doesn't help.
How can I make it restart my application after I have done a deploy? Thanks in advance for your sage advice and better wisdom!
EDIT 1: My .bashrc http://pastie.org/10529200
My $PATH: /home/pi/.nvm/versions/node/v4.2.0/bin:/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/sbin:/bin:/usr/local/games:/usr/games
EDIT 2: I added /home/pi/.nvm/versions/node/v4.2.0/bin/pm2 which is the full path to pm2 and now I get the following error: /usr/bin/env: node: No such file or directory
It seems that even if I provide the full path, node isn't executed.
I think the problem is the misinterpretation that the shell executing node has a full environment like an interactive ssh session does. Most likely this is not the case.
When a SSH session spawns a shell it goes through a lot of gyrations to build an environment suitable to work with interactively. Things like inheriting from the login process, reading /etc/profile, reading ~/.profile. But in the cases where your executing bash directly this isn't always guaranteed. In fact the $PATH might be completely empty.
When /usr/bin/env node executes it looks for node in your $PATH which in a non-interactive shell could be anything or empty.
Most systems have a default PATH=/bin:/usr/bin typically /usr/local/bin is not included in the default environment.
You could attempt to force a login with ssh using ssh … '/bin/bash -l -c "…"'.
You can also write a specialized script on the server that knows how the environment should be when executed outside of an interactive shell:
#!/bin/bash
# Example shell script; filename: /usr/local/bin/my_script.sh
export PATH=$PATH:/usr/local/bin
export NODE_PATH=/usr/local/share/node
export USER=myuser
export HOME=/home/myuser
source $HOME/.nvm/nvm.sh
cd /usr/bin/share/my_script
nvm use 0.12
/usr/bin/env node ./script_name.js
Then call it through ssh: ssh … '/usr/local/bin/my_script.sh'.
Beyond these ideas I don't see how to help further.
Like Sukima said, the likelihood is that this is due to an environment issue - SSH'ing into a server does not set up a full environment. You can, however, get around much of this by simply calling /etc/profile yourself at the start of your command using the . operator (which is the same as the "source" command):
ssh pi#server.com '. /etc/profile ; cd project; pm2 restart app.js -x -- --prod'
/etc/profile should itself be set up to call the .bashrc of the relevant user, which is why I have removed that part. I used to have to do this quite a lot for quick proof-of-concept scripts at a previous workplace. I don't know if it would be considered a nasty hack for a more permanent script, but it certainly works, and would require minimal modification to your existing script should that be an issue.
For me I have to load :nvm as I installed node and yarn using :nvm
To load :nvm when ssh remote execution, we call
ssh :user#:host 'source ~/.nvm/nvm.sh; :other_commands_here'
Try:
ssh pi#server.com 'bash -l -c "source /home/pi/.bashrc; cd project; pm2 restart app.js -x -- --prod"'
You should enable some environment values by "source" or dot command ".". Here is an example.
ssh pi#server.com '. /home/pi/.nvm/nvm.sh; cd project; pm2 restart app.js -x -- --prod'
What worked for me was adding this to my .bash_profile:
if [ -f ~/.bashrc ]; then
. ~/.bashrc
fi
Source: https://stackoverflow.com/a/820533/1824444

Automatically starting Celery from within Django app

I am getting a Django 1.6 set up started on a Linux (Debian Whiskey) server on Google Compute Engine. I've got Celery 3.1 running in the background to help with some processes. When I start a new instance (using a snapshot I've created), I always need to start Celery. I am looking for a way to start Celery automatically on server-load. This is particularly helpful if the server decides to restart, as they seem to do now and then. To achieve this, I've edited the rc.local file:
$ sudo nano /etc/rc.local
It used to contain the following:
exit 0
[ -x /sbin/initctl ] && initctl emit --no-wait google-rc-local-has-run || true
I've edited the file such that it now reads:
cd /home/user/gce_app celery -A myapp.tasks --concurrency=1 --loglevel=info worker > output.log 2> errors.log &
exit 0
[ -x /sbin/initctl ] && initctl emit --no-wait google-rc-local-has-run || true
The directory:
/home/user/gce_app
is where my Django project resides and the directory I need to be in to start Celery. However, after restarting the instance, when I type in:
$ celery status
Error: No nodes replied within time constraint.
Opening the errors.log file, I see:
/etc/rc.local: 14: /etc/rc.local: celery: not found
Surely the cd at the start of that code string should address this? Is there a way (within the Django project itself) to start the Celery instance when the project is started to make the code more platform-independent and immune to inevitable OS updates?
I think you're missing a semicolon between your 'cd' and celery invocations. Also, I suspect rc.local may not be searching your path, so you may need to give an absolute path to celery. e.g.
cd /home/user/gce_app; /usr/bin/celery ...
Alternatively, you might look at using a startup script from the GCE metadata to avoid needing to modify rc.local.
Since you seem to be using upstart this might help you:
description "runs celery"
start on runlevel [2345]
stop on runlevel [!2345]
console log
env VENV='/srv/myvirtualenv'
env PROJECT='/srv/run/mydjangoproject'
exec su -s /bin/sh -c 'exec "$0" "$#"' www-data -- /usr/bin/env PATH=$VENV:$PATH $VENV/python $PROJECT/manage.py celeryd
respawn
respawn limit 10 5

Upstart env stanza not setting environment variables (like NODE_ENV) for Node.js application

I have an Upstart script for my server that looks like this:
description "myapp node.js server"
start on runlevel [2345]
stop on shutdown
env NODE_ENV=production
env CUSTOM=somevalue
exec sudo -u nodejs /usr/local/bin/node /opt/myapp/app.js >> /var/log/nodejs/myapp.log 2>&1
post-start script
NODE_PID=`status myapp | egrep -oi '([0-9]+)$' | head -n1`
echo $NODE_PID > /var/run/nodejs/myapp.pid
end script
However, the app doesn't see NODE_ENV set to production. In fact, if I console.log(process.env) within the app, I don't see NODE_ENV or CUSTOM. Any ideas what's happening?
By the way, NODE_ENV=production node app.js works just fine.
From the sudo man page (Ubuntu version of sudo)
There are two distinct ways to deal with environment variables. By default, the env_reset sudoers
option is enabled. This causes commands to be executed with a minimal environment containing TERM,
PATH, HOME, SHELL, LOGNAME, USER and USERNAME in addition to variables from the invoking process
permitted by the env_check and env_keep sudoers options. There is effectively a whitelist for
environment variables.
Sudo is resetting the environment. This is a frustrating aspect of using su and sudo in upstart or init scripts. Recent versions of upstart support specifying uid/gid without the use of sudo via the setuid/setgid directives as in the example below. Also note the use of chdir.
start on filesystem and started networking
respawn
chdir /var/www/yourapp
setuid yourapp
setgid yourapp
env NODE_ENV=production
env PATH=/usr/local/bin:/usr/bin:/bin
env CUSTOM=somevalue
exec /usr/local/bin/node app.js | /usr/bin/multilog s1024000 /var/log/yourapp 2>&1
For older versions of upstart, here's what I used to do to work around it.
description "start and stop the example.com node.js server"
start on filesystem and started networking
respawn
chdir /path/to/your/code
exec su -c 'PATH=$PWD/node/bin NODE_ENV=$(cat node_env.txt) ./node/bin/node app/server.js' www-data >> tmp/stdout.log 2>&1
Note that I just put a node_env.txt file in my app root that sets production mode, because I hate environment variables. You can just do NODE_ENV=production right there if you prefer.
Just for the record. The Upstart Cookbook recommends the usage of start-stop-daemon instead of su or sudo when your Upstart version does not implement setuid.
But, unless you are still using 10.04 LTS (Lucid Lynx) which only has Upstart version 0.6.5, you should be using the setuid/setgid directives.
This has been working for me to set node env variables in upstart.
#!upstart
start on runlevel [2345]
stop on runlevel [016]
respawn
script
echo $$ > /var/run/app.pid
exec sudo NODE_ENV=production /opt/node/bin/node /opt/myapp/app.js >> /var/log/app.sys.log 2>&1
end script
visudo has a line to define environment variables to be kept.
sudo visudo
and add your env to:
Defaults env_keep="YOUR_ENV ..."
and reboot.

How to run Node.js as a background process and never die?

I connect to the linux server via putty SSH. I tried to run it as a background process like this:
$ node server.js &
However, after 2.5 hrs the terminal becomes inactive and the process dies. Is there anyway I can keep the process alive even with the terminal disconnected?
Edit 1
Actually, I tried nohup, but as soon as I close the Putty SSH terminal or unplug my internet, the server process stops right away.
Is there anything I have to do in Putty?
Edit 2 (on Feb, 2012)
There is a node.js module, forever. It will run node.js server as daemon service.
nohup node server.js > /dev/null 2>&1 &
nohup means: Do not terminate this process even when the stty is cut
off.
> /dev/null means: stdout goes to /dev/null (which is a dummy
device that does not record any output).
2>&1 means: stderr also goes to the stdout (which is already redirected to /dev/null). You may replace &1 with a file path to keep a log of errors, e.g.: 2>/tmp/myLog
& at the end means: run this command as a background task.
Simple solution (if you are not interested in coming back to the process, just want it to keep running):
nohup node server.js &
There's also the jobs command to see an indexed list of those backgrounded processes. And you can kill a backgrounded process by running kill %1 or kill %2 with the number being the index of the process.
Powerful solution (allows you to reconnect to the process if it is interactive):
screen
You can then detach by pressing Ctrl+a+d and then attach back by running screen -r
Also consider the newer alternative to screen, tmux.
You really should try to use screen. It is a bit more complicated than just doing nohup long_running &, but understanding screen once you never come back again.
Start your screen session at first:
user#host:~$ screen
Run anything you want:
wget http://mirror.yandex.ru/centos/4.6/isos/i386/CentOS-4.6-i386-binDVD.iso
Press ctrl+A and then d. Done. Your session keeps going on in background.
You can list all sessions by screen -ls, and attach to some by screen -r 20673.pts-0.srv command, where 0673.pts-0.srv is an entry list.
This is an old question, but is high ranked on Google. I almost can't believe on the highest voted answers, because running a node.js process inside a screen session, with the & or even with the nohup flag -- all of them -- are just workarounds.
Specially the screen/tmux solution, which should really be considered an amateur solution. Screen and Tmux are not meant to keep processes running, but for multiplexing terminal sessions. It's fine, when you are running a script on your server and want to disconnect. But for a node.js server your don't want your process to be attached to a terminal session. This is too fragile. To keep things running you need to daemonize the process!
There are plenty of good tools to do that.
PM2: http://pm2.keymetrics.io/
# basic usage
$ npm install pm2 -g
$ pm2 start server.js
# you can even define how many processes you want in cluster mode:
$ pm2 start server.js -i 4
# you can start various processes, with complex startup settings
# using an ecosystem.json file (with env variables, custom args, etc):
$ pm2 start ecosystem.json
One big advantage I see in favor of PM2 is that it can generate the system startup script to make the process persist between restarts:
$ pm2 startup [platform]
Where platform can be ubuntu|centos|redhat|gentoo|systemd|darwin|amazon.
forever.js: https://github.com/foreverjs/forever
# basic usage
$ npm install forever -g
$ forever start app.js
# you can run from a json configuration as well, for
# more complex environments or multi-apps
$ forever start development.json
Init scripts:
I'm not go into detail about how to write a init script, because I'm not an expert in this subject and it'd be too long for this answer, but basically they are simple shell scripts, triggered by OS events. You can read more about this here
Docker:
Just run your server in a Docker container with -d option and, voilá, you have a daemonized node.js server!
Here is a sample Dockerfile (from node.js official guide):
FROM node:argon
# Create app directory
RUN mkdir -p /usr/src/app
WORKDIR /usr/src/app
# Install app dependencies
COPY package.json /usr/src/app/
RUN npm install
# Bundle app source
COPY . /usr/src/app
EXPOSE 8080
CMD [ "npm", "start" ]
Then build your image and run your container:
$ docker build -t <your username>/node-web-app .
$ docker run -p 49160:8080 -d <your username>/node-web-app
Always use the proper tool for the job. It'll save you a lot of headaches and over hours!
another solution disown the job
$ nohup node server.js &
[1] 1711
$ disown -h %1
nohup will allow the program to continue even after the terminal dies. I have actually had situations where nohup prevents the SSH session from terminating correctly, so you should redirect input as well:
$ nohup node server.js </dev/null &
Depending on how nohup is configured, you may also need to redirect standard output and standard error to files.
Nohup and screen offer great light solutions to running Node.js in the background. Node.js process manager (PM2) is a handy tool for deployment. Install it with npm globally on your system:
npm install pm2 -g
to run a Node.js app as a daemon:
pm2 start app.js
You can optionally link it to Keymetrics.io a monitoring SAAS made by Unitech.
$ disown node server.js &
It will remove command from active task list and send the command to background
I have this function in my shell rc file, based on #Yoichi's answer:
nohup-template () {
[[ "$1" = "" ]] && echo "Example usage:\nnohup-template urxvtd" && return 0
nohup "$1" > /dev/null 2>&1 &
}
You can use it this way:
nohup-template "command you would execute here"
Have you read about the nohup command?
To run command as a system service on debian with sysv init:
Copy skeleton script and adapt it for your needs, probably all you have to do is to set some variables. Your script will inherit fine defaults from /lib/init/init-d-script, if something does not fits your needs - override it in your script. If something goes wrong you can see details in source /lib/init/init-d-script. Mandatory vars are DAEMON and NAME. Script will use start-stop-daemon to run your command, in START_ARGS you can define additional parameters of start-stop-daemon to use.
cp /etc/init.d/skeleton /etc/init.d/myservice
chmod +x /etc/init.d/myservice
nano /etc/init.d/myservice
/etc/init.d/myservice start
/etc/init.d/myservice stop
That is how I run some python stuff for my wikimedia wiki:
...
DESC="mediawiki articles converter"
DAEMON='/home/mss/pp/bin/nslave'
DAEMON_ARGS='--cachedir /home/mss/cache/'
NAME='nslave'
PIDFILE='/var/run/nslave.pid'
START_ARGS='--background --make-pidfile --remove-pidfile --chuid mss --chdir /home/mss/pp/bin'
export PATH="/home/mss/pp/bin:$PATH"
do_stop_cmd() {
start-stop-daemon --stop --quiet --retry=TERM/30/KILL/5 \
$STOP_ARGS \
${PIDFILE:+--pidfile ${PIDFILE}} --name $NAME
RETVAL="$?"
[ "$RETVAL" = 2 ] && return 2
rm -f $PIDFILE
return $RETVAL
}
Besides setting vars I had to override do_stop_cmd because of python substitutes the executable, so service did not stop properly.
Apart from cool solutions above I'd mention also about supervisord and monit tools which allow to start process, monitor its presence and start it if it died. With 'monit' you can also run some active checks like check if process responds for http request
For Ubuntu i use this:
(exec PROG_SH &> /dev/null &)
regards
Try this for a simple solution
cmd & exit

Resources