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

Answer 1

If you simply want to run the script uninterrupted until it completes you can use nohup as already mentioned in the answers here. However, none of the answers provide a full command that also logs stdin and stdout.

nohup node index.js >> app.log 2>&1 &

• The >> means append to app.log.
• 2>&1 makes sure that errors are also send to stdout and added to the app.log.
• The ending & makes sure your current terminal is disconnected from command so you can continue working.

If you want to run a node server (or something that should start back up when the server restarts) you should use systemd / systemctl.