how to automatically restart a node server?

Question

We are finishing development of a project, the client is already using it but occasionally some errors occur - crashing the server.

I know I could register a service as 'upstart' script on linux, in order to have my node service restart when it crashes.

But our server is running other stuff, so we can't restart it. Well, actually, while writing, I realize I have two questions then:

• Will 'upstart' work without having to reboot? Something is just whispering yes to me :)
• If not, what other option would I have to 'respawn' my node server when it crashes?

Answer 1

Yes, upstart will restart your process without a reboot.

Also, you should look into forever.

Answer 2

PM2 is a Production process manager for Node.js app.

Answer 3

If your focus for automatic restart is an always running application, I suggest to use a process manager. Process manager, in general, handles the node process(es if cluster enabled), and is responsible for the process/es execution. PM leans on the operative system: your node app and the OS are not so strinctly chained because the pm is in the middle.

Final trick: put the process manager on upstart.

Here is a complete performance improvement path to follow.

Answer 4

Using a shared server and not having root privileges, I can't download or install any of the previously mentioned libraries. What I am able to do is use a simple infinite bash loop to solve my issue. First, I created the file ./startup.sh in the base directory ($ vim startup.sh):

#!/bin/bash
while:
do
    node ./dist/sophisticatedPrimate/server/main.js
done

Then I run it with:

$ bash startup.sh

and it works fine. There is a downside to this, which is that is doesn't have a graceful way to end the loop (at least not once I exit the server). What I ended up doing is simply finding the process with:

$ ps aux | grep startup.sh

Then killing it with

$ kill <process id>
example
$ kill 555555