keep alive webserver

[Flavio Del Bianco]

Hi, I'm learning nodejs and I had a doubt in how I keep alive a
webserver without running it everytime like $ node myserver.js? and
how it can connect alone every time the server get on like it does
apache.

[Tim Caswell]

it depends on your system.  On Ubuntu I use upstart and create a small script in /etc/init/SOMENAME.conf.  And then you can use start, stop, and restart like  `sudo start SOMENAME`

Here is the upstart config for howtonode.org:

    description "Run node server"

    env PATH=/home/tim/nvm/v0.6.11/bin:/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/sbin:/bin:/usr/games

    respawn

    start on runlevel [23]

    script

      cd /home/tim

      exec node server.js > access.log 2>> error.log 

    end script

Because of the "start on runlevel [23]" line it's started whenever the server reboots.  The "respawn" line restarts the node process if it dies.

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[theCole]

Tim, 

Do you have the link to the blog where that was posted?

-Cole

[theCole]

( the actual post )

[Mikeal Rogers]

I also use upstart. I *hate* upstart, but keeping your process up is something you want the kernel to be responsible for.

[Tim Caswell]

There is an old article on howtonode written by Tim Smart I think, but it's not what I use.  If you want to use upstart, best to read the manual.

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[nan huo]

forever is more easier to start with https://github.com/nodejitsu/forever

[Anand George]

Here's the article if that helps.

http://howtonode.org/deploying-node-upstart-monit 

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[Flavio Del Bianco]

Ok once I createed the file /etc/init/mynode.conf what I have to do? I
tryed immediatly to make "sudo start mynode" but server returns me :
start: Unknown job: mynode
What this it means?

[g sambolic]

Try with forever:
http://blog.nodejitsu.com/keep-a-nodejs-server-up-with-forever

[Flavio Del Bianco]

I can't install it for problems with versions. I tryed but I get errors after written the command

npm install forever

[Sirwan Qutbi]

Don't use Forever .. load of crap.

It only works with old versions.

[Dave Clements]

they updated...

[Fadrizul H.]

Yeah man, they updated like months ago =.=

Sent from my BlackBerry®

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From: Sirwan Qutbi <sirwa...@gmail.com>

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Date: Sat, 17 Mar 2012 10:22:44 -0700 (PDT)

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Subject: [nodejs] Re: keep alive webserver

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[Nico Kaiser]

Well, forever does not help when you not only need something that restarts the script on error, but a real startup script (which starts the node service when the server reboots).

I wrote a simple init script for this purpose (with logging and user switching) for sysvinit: https://github.com/nicokaiser/node-init

Nico

[HG]

Hi!

I was just down this same road. This is the upstart script that I ended up with on my system (RH 6.1):
#!upstart
description "NodeApp - node.js HTTP-server"
author      "Me"

# One example said that it's safer to start after mounts
#start on startup
start on started mountall
stop on shutdown

# respawn
respawn
# If the process is respawed more than COUNT times within an interval of INTERVAL seconds the process will be stopped and not restarted
# respawn limit COUNT INTERVAL
respawn limit 10 2

# settings
env APP_NAME="NodeApp"
env APP_DIR="/home/nodeuser/dev/NodeApp"
env APP_FILE="NodeApp.js"
env RUN_AS="nodeuser"
# This is setting for the app...
env NODE_ENV="production"

script
    export HOME="/home/${RUN_AS}/"
    export NODE_ENV

    echo $$ > /var/run/${APP_NAME}.pid
    # sudo doesn't work on redhat 6.1
    # exec sudo -u nodeuser /usr/local/bin/node /home/nodeuser/dev/NodeApp.js >> /var/log/NodeApp.log 2>&1
    exec su --session-command="/usr/local/bin/node ${APP_DIR}/${APP_FILE}" >> /var/log/${APP_NAME}.log 2>&1 ${RUN_AS}

    # root works also - but you don't want to run as root, right
    # echo $$ > /var/run/NodeApp.pid
    # export HOME="/root"
    # exec /usr/local/bin/node /home/nodeuser/dev/NodeApp/NodeApp.js >> /var/log/NodeApp.log 2>&1
end script

pre-start script
    echo "[`date -u +%Y-%m-%dT%T.%3NZ`] (sys) Starting" >> /var/log/${APP_NAME}.log
end script

pre-stop script
    rm /var/run/${APP_NAME}.pid
    echo "[`date -u +%Y-%m-%dT%T.%3NZ`] (sys) Stopping" >> /var/log/${APP_NAME}.log
end script

Start with 'sudo start NodeApp' and stop with sudo stop... When you develop this, do not enable respawn until it works otherwise. You can run it as root if you want (if you need port 80), but otherwise, I think it's much better to run as some other user. Yes, it could be cleaner, but I'll hope you get the important points.

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HG.

[George Snelling]

The following isn't for mission-critical systems, but it's been working so well for us and is so simple that I thought I'd share.  We use nodemon (https://github.com/remy/nodemon) to start our node server.  It's just file watcher that restarts node if a source file changes, normally used for dev.  It is much smaller and has fewer moving parts than forever.  node-dev is a similar tool (https://github.com/fgnass/node-dev) that many people like that does basically the same thing.    

our startup script is something like this:  

nohup nodemon <app> >>/var/log/app.log 2>&1  & 

Then in our main app startup function, we have this charming little hack:  

process.on('uncaughtException', function(err) {

  console.error(err.stack||err)

  if (serverStarted) {     

    fs.writeFileSync('./crash.js', '// App crashed ' + Date() + '\n\n' + err.stack)

  }

  process.exit(1)

})

The vast majority of our server crashes are due to bugs in our code, not external problems like hardware, and this works fine for those.  If my job were on the line to keep the server alive no matter what I would figure out upstart or monit, but they both make my head hurt, and for the 90% case, this does the job.

Cheers!  

-George