How to Install PM2 and Ensure Automatic Restart of Your Node.js Application

To install PM2 and ensure it automatically restarts your Node.js application, follow these steps:

Step 1: Install Node.js and npm

If you don’t already have Node.js and npm installed, you can install them using the following commands:

sudo apt update
sudo apt install nodejs npm -y

Step 2: Install PM2

Install PM2 globally using npm:

sudo npm install -g pm2

Step 3: Start your application with PM2

Navigate to your application directory and start your application with PM2:

pm2 start app.js

Replace app.js with the entry point of your application.

Step 4: Save the PM2 process list and corresponding environments

To ensure your PM2 processes are resurrected on reboot, save the current process list:

pm2 save

Step 5: Configure PM2 to start on boot

PM2 provides a built-in method to generate and configure the startup script for different platforms. Run the following command to configure PM2 to start on boot:

pm2 startup

This command will output a line of code that you need to run with sudo privileges. It will look something like this:

sudo env PATH=$PATH:/usr/bin pm2 startup <your-init-system> -u <your-username> --hp <your-home-path>

For example, on a system using systemd, it might look like:

sudo env PATH=$PATH:/usr/bin pm2 startup systemd -u user --hp /home/user

Run the command that is generated by pm2 startup.

Step 6: Verify that PM2 is set up correctly

To verify that PM2 is correctly set up to start on boot, you can reboot your system:

sudo reboot

After the system reboots, check the status of your PM2 processes:

pm2 status

You should see your application running.

Additional Tips

• Monitor your application: PM2 provides monitoring tools. You can monitor logs and other details using:

  pm2 monit

• Logs: Access logs using:

  pm2 logs

By following these steps, you’ll have PM2 installed and configured to automatically restart your Node.js application on system reboot.