Automatically start forever (node) on system restart

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

  1. 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 then yourself, you will have to run this with sudo.

    $ crontab -u testuser -e

  2. 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.

  3. Once in the editor add the following line:

    @reboot /usr/local/bin/forever start /your/path/to/your/app.js

  4. Save the file. You should get some feedback that the cron had been installed.

  5. 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

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.

This case valid for Debian.
Add following to /etc/init.d/rc.local

/usr/bin/sudo -u {{user}} /usr/local/bin/forever start {{app path}}

{{user}} replace to your username
{{app path}} replace to your app path. For example, /var/www/test/app.js

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

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.

You can find here is a script that I created to run a CoffeeScript site with forever:

https://github.com/hectorcorrea/hectorcorrea.com/blob/v1/etc/forever-initd-hectorcorrea.sh

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.

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. Replace "bob" with the runtime user for node.

crontab -u bob -e

5. 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) :)

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

crontab does not work for me on CentOS x86 6.5. @reboot seems not working.

Finally I got this solution.

Edit /etc/rc.local

sudo vi /etc/rc.local

Add this line at 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 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.

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 kept on.