How do I leave Node.js server on EC2 running forever?

Question

As you can tell by my question, I\'m new to this...

I built my first website, I set up my first Node.js server to serve it and then pushed everything live on EC2.

Answer 1

Before you invoke Node.js, run the command:

screen

This will create a persistent environment which will allow your process to keep running after you disconnect.

When you reconnect, you can use this command to reconnect to that environment:

screen -r

Here's a random link to learn more about screen:

http://www.rackaid.com/blog/linux-screen-tutorial-and-how-to/

However, this won't help you if your EC2 instance restarts. There are many different ways to do that. Adding your startup command to /etc/rc.local is one way. Here's a link to an Amazon guide which includes adding something to /etc/rc.local.

http://docs.aws.amazon.com/AWSEC2/latest/UserGuide/building-shared-amis.html

Hope this helps,

James