I got myself the always module for nodejs. Now when I run my server using "always server.js" it runs and restarts like it should, however after restarting around 10 times it just doesn't restart it anymore. The process of always stays, but the process of the server itself is not there anymore since it was not restarted. Why?
I have used forever with nodemon without any significant issues on ubuntu. Some other alternatives that come to mind for monitoring/restarting include:
Upstart (ubuntu): http://upstart.ubuntu.com/
Monit: http://mmonit.com/monit/
Daemontools: http://cr.yp.to/daemontools.html
Launchtool: http://people.debian.org/~enrico/launchtool.html
Hope this helps.