How do I run a node.js app as a background service

Question

Since this post has gotten a lot of attention over the years, I've listed the top solutions per platform at the bottom of this post.

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Original post:

I want my node.js server to run in the background, i.e.: when I close my terminal I want my server to keep running. I've googled this and came up with this tutorial, however it doesn't work as intended. So instead of using that daemon script, I thought I just used the output redirection (the 2>&1 >> file part), but this too does not exit - I get a blank line in my terminal, like it's waiting for output/errors.

I've also tried to put the process in the background, but as soon as I close my terminal the process is killed as well.

So how can I leave it running when I shut down my local computer?

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Top solutions:

• Systemd (Linux)
• Launchd (Mac)
• node-windows (Windows)
• PM2 (Node.js)

Answer 1

This might not be the accepted way, but I do it with screen, especially while in development because I can bring it back up and fool with it if necessary.

screen
node myserver.js
>>CTRL-A then hit D

The screen will detach and survive you logging off. Then you can get it back back doing screen -r. Hit up the screen manual for more details. You can name the screens and whatnot if you like.

Answer 2

UPDATE - As mentioned in one of the answers below, PM2 has some really nice functionality missing from forever. Consider using it.

Original Answer

Use nohup:

nohup node server.js &

EDIT I wanted to add that the accepted answer is really the way to go. I'm using forever on instances that need to stay up. I like to do npm install -g forever so it's in the node path and then just do forever start server.js

Answer 3

I use tmux for a multiple window/pane development environment on remote hosts. It's really simple to detach and keep the process running in the background. Have a look at tmux

Answer 4

PM2 is a production process manager for Node.js applications with a built-in load balancer. It allows you to keep applications alive forever, to reload them without downtime and to facilitate common system admin tasks. https://github.com/Unitech/pm2

Answer 5

UPDATE: i updated to include the latest from pm2:

for many use cases, using a systemd service is the simplest and most appropriate way to manage a node process. for those that are running numerous node processes or independently-running node microservices in a single environment, pm2 is a more full featured tool.

https://github.com/unitech/pm2

http://pm2.io

• it has a really useful monitoring feature -> pretty 'gui' for command line monitoring of multiple processes with pm2 monit or process list with pm2 list
• organized Log management -> pm2 logs
• other stuff:

  • Behavior configuration
  • Source map support
  • PaaS Compatible
  • Watch & Reload
  • Module System
  • Max memory reload
  • Cluster Mode
  • Hot reload
  • Development workflow
  • Startup Scripts
  • Auto completion
  • Deployment workflow
  • Keymetrics monitoring
  • API

Answer 6

The accepted answer is probably the best production answer, but for a quick hack doing dev work, I found this:

nodejs scriptname.js & didn't work, because nodejs seemed to gobble up the &, and so the thing didn't let me keep using the terminal without scriptname.js dying.

But I put nodejs scriptname.js in a .sh file, and nohup sh startscriptname.sh & worked.

Definitely not a production thing, but it solves the "I need to keep using my terminal and don't want to start 5 different terminals" problem.