How can I restart a Node.js app from within itself (programmatically)?

Question

How can I create an app that can restart itself? I want to create an app that sets up a web-admin which can restart itself. Is this possible? If so, how? I was thinking this

Answer 1

Yes, upstart will restart your process without a nodemon.

npm install -g nodemon
sudo nodemon server.js

nodemon will watch the files in the directory that nodemon was started, and if they change, it will automatically restart your node application.

Answer 2

LK"I

It is possible without external dependencies:

console.log("This is pid " + process.pid);
setTimeout(function () {
    process.on("exit", function () {
        require("child_process").spawn(process.argv.shift(), process.argv, {
            cwd: process.cwd(),
            detached : true,
            stdio: "inherit"
        });
    });
    process.exit();
}, 5000);

source : https://gist.github.com/silverwind/d0802f7a919ae86ff25e

Answer 3

I have run Forever several times and it is easy to get started with. Check it out at: https://github.com/nodejitsu/forever

Answer 4

1. you can run your app using child process and manipulate it how needed: https://nodejs.org/api/child_process.html

2. use forever, pm2 or whatever thing to restart after death and kill itself with process.exit() https://nodejs.org/api/process.html

Answer 5

I know it's a little late to reply however I had a similar requirement. I wanted to restart my node process whenever I made a configuration change. I'm using pm2 to manage my node processes so it turned out to be really easy.

After making a configuration change, i execute process.exit() from within the node process. As far as I can see, the process exits then pm2 restarts the process fine.

Not sure yet if there are any side effects but it seems to be working fine for me right now.