Home / server / Questions / 279594
Accepted
Max
Asked: 2011-06-13 03:06:52 +0800 CST

cant get upstart script for node.js program to start on startup

  • 772

I made a rather simple startup script for my node.js program that should run on startup:

start on startup
stop on shutdown

script
    exec sudo -u max WEBSITES_DIR=/home/max/websites/ /usr/local/bin/node /home/max/websites/server.js 2>&1 >> /var/log/node.log
end script

If I use:

sudo start my-program

it works, but when I reboot the machine I get the error message: 

init: my-program main process (325) terminated with status 2

Anybody any idea on how to debug this?

ubuntu node.js upstart

3 Answers

  1. Best Answer

    The startup event is the very first event that gets emitted in the Upstart bootup process. There are all kinds of things that won't have happened yet - the root filesystem will still be mounted read-only, networking hasn't been initialized, etc.

    I suspect that the job is exiting quickly because all of its dependencies (explicit or implicit) aren't initialized yet. I'd change the start condition to something like

    start on filesystem and started networking

    At least then you'll be able to write to your logfile.

    As a side note, it looks like you reversed your output redirection arguments - you actually meant >> /var/log/node.log 2>&1. Using 2>&1 means "take whatever is currently fd 1, and make fd 2 the same thing", but you haven't changed what stdout is yet.

    • 12

  2. HiMax,

    Startup node.js on Ubuntu server

    more /etc/init/noded.conf

    Ubuntu upstart file at /etc/init/noded.conf:

    description "noded.conf"

author      "ntbinh"

start on runlevel [2345]

stop on runlevel [06]

respawn

script

su - ubuntu -c "NODE_ENV=test exec sudo /etc/init.d/noded start"

end script

    You have already /etc/init.d/noded. You can edit /etc/init/noded.conf ==> startup booting:

     # Ubuntu upstart file at `/etc/init/noded.conf`


 description "noded.conf"
 author      "ntbinh"

 respawn

 start on runlevel [2345]

 stop on runlevel [06]

 script

 su - ubuntu -c "NODE_ENV=test exec sudo /usr/bin/nohup /usr/bin/node /home/ubuntu/server.js" >> /home/ubuntu/log.log 

 end script
    • 0

  3. In my case, the similar error was caused by trying to start a script from my upstart script, that didn't actually exist. It turned out that I forgot to commit and push the script.

    • -1