Start NodeBB on system boot

Marco

@a_5mith I don't think forever or supervisor start nodebb after system start. Please correct me if I am wrong.

markkus

@Marco The Debian script you provided uses the built-in NodeBB start function(?), which is okay, but I need the script to start a forever instance. How can do that?

Marco

@markkus Sorry, I did not get that from your first post. If you want to run a script forever, use forever. If you want it to start after system boot, all you have to do is change the script I posted a little bit to use forever instead of nodebb.

Guiri

@Marco I use @reboot /usr/local/bin/forever /my/nodebb/app.js start in my crontab. That seems to do the trick.

Marco

@Guiri Yep. There are many ways. I prefer having a nice script which can do start/stop tasks when I call it in one place with all the other start/stop scripts. You prefer a solution which is more behind the scenes. But at the end of the day, both will work The OP will have to choose what he wants to do

julian

... there was an article on using Upstart in the wiki, but I cleared out the wiki and didn't notice it wasn't migrated to the documentation...

In any case, this is the upstart config I use in running this forum:

start on startup
stop on runlevel [016]

respawn

setuid julian
setgid julian

script
    cd /path/to/my/nodebb
    ./nodebb start
end script

Edit: I think you might need a --no-daemon tacked on to the end of the ./nodebb start...

eEight

@julian Not working for me. I'm using ubuntu. I tried your Upstart script with and without the --no-daemon, I can see the process listed but the forum is not started. With --no-daemon it minified in infite loop.

I am using nginx and user www-data setuid www-data is that a problem?

su - www-data -c '/srv/www/mywebsite/nodebb/nodebb start'
No directory, logging in with HOME=/
This account is currently not available.

well I created an user for nodebb, but the problem persist. I am not able to boot nodebb at startup.

i am wondering about the other proposed script, they will start nodebb with root!? is that ok?

it would be very nice to have a better documentation for this part on https://docs.nodebb.org/en/latest/running/index.html

julian

@eEight Who owns the files in /src/www/mywebsite/nodebb? The user starting nodebb should be a user that has write access to that folder (at the very least).

If you're calling setuid www-data, there's no need to prefix the ./nodebb start command with su - www-data

eEight

@julian Looks like it's impossible to run nodebb with www-data (nginx user), because www-data doesn't have a "real" account. So I created an user nodebb and use your script in /etc/init/nodebb.conf

start on startup
stop on runlevel [016]

respawn

setuid nodebb
setgid nodebb

script
    cd /srv/www/mywebsite/nodebb
    ./nodebb start
end script

When booting my server = nodebb is not started. I have to do manually service nodebb start then it works.

markkus

@eEight Why would you want to start NodeBB with www-data? I'm pretty sure that running NodeBB with root won't rise a security risk.

Anyway, try adding this script as a init.d service in /etc/init.d/nodebb/. I'm pretty sure it will boot your NodeBB instance flawlessly, as I'm using basically the same script.
(Ubuntu)

#! /bin/bash
# /etc/init.d/nodebb

case "$1" in
  start)
    echo "Starting NodeBB..."
    cd /srv/www/community/nodebb
    ./nodebb start
    ;;
  stop)
    echo "Stopping NodeBB..."
    cd /srv/www/community/nodebb
    ./nodebb stop
    ;;
  *)
    echo "Usage: /etc/init.d/nodebb {start|stop}"
    exit 1
    ;;
esac

exit 0

julian

Re: starting NodeBB as root user:

Conventionally, this is not encouraged as it breaks the "rule of least privilege". Processes should have as restrictive a set of privileges as possible so that in the event that a malicious user is able to "break out" of the app and into a command line environment, they are only able to do a limited amount of damage.

If a malicious user broke out and was automatically a root user, there is no limit to what he/she could do.

eEight

Not sure why but the UpStart script from @julian is not launched at boot. I have to manually log and type service nodebb start then it works (launching nodebb with the right user & group).

erlgo

Found this sample for startup node app's shell:
https://github.com/chovy/node-startup.git

Easy to use & Save times.

Peter-Zoltan Keresztes

just put in cronjob something like this:

@reboot cd <path>/<to>/<nodebb> && ./nodebb start

that would do the startup trick.
Until the latest version pm2 was doing a good job.

Shaun

start on startup
stop on runlevel [016]

respawn

setuid nodebb
setgid nodebb

script
    cd /srv/www/mywebsite/nodebb
    node loader.js --no-silent --no-daemon
end script

This script (from https://docs.nodebb.org/en/latest/running/index.html) has been working for me forever on 0.6.x but is no longer starting NodeBB on startup. /var/log/upstart/nodebb.log contains this, repeated over and over again:

events.js:85
      throw er; // Unhandled 'error' event
            ^
Error: EROFS, open '/opt/nodebb/logs/output.log'
    at Error (native)
events.js:85
      throw er; // Unhandled 'error' event
            ^
Error: EROFS, open '/opt/nodebb/logs/output.log'
    at Error (native)

Anyone have a clue what might be broken?
sudo start nodebb works as expected, as does ./nodebb start and node loader.js --no-silent --no-daemon works when I log in to the console. I replaced that line with ./nodebb start and it seems to work. Is this just a case of the docs being out of date or is this something I should be concerned about?

chrismccoy

Here is what my startup script looks like on ubuntu 14.10 (my nodebb is run under my username)

bb

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Gist (gist.github.com)

julian

@Shaun, the EROFS error points to /opt/nodebb not being a writable file system... as far as I know, that upstart script still works, as I am using it myself.

Shaun

@julian But that's not really possible. I can start it under my user account, even using the same command and it starts from the startup script after I changed it to ./nodebb start ... and it was working for months before I upgraded to 0.7.2 and just suddenly stopped because of it. And starting it from any other method does write output to /opt/nodebb/logs/output.log:

nodebb@NodeBB:/opt/nodebb/logs$ ls -la
total 20
drwxrwxr-x  2 nodebb nodebb 4096 Aug  4 06:55 .
drwxr-xr-x 10 nodebb nodebb 4096 Aug  4 07:28 ..
-rw-rw-r--  1 nodebb nodebb 6 Aug  4 06:51 .gitignore
-rw-rw-r--  1 nodebb nodebb 5021 Aug  4 07:28 output.log

I ran into so many problems after this upgrade that I just threw the whole instance away (mv /opt/nodebb /opt/nodebb_old) made a new directory and installed using the steps from https://docs.nodebb.org/en/latest/installing/os/ubuntu.html starting with the repository clone:

git clone -b v0.7.x https://github.com/NodeBB/NodeBB.git nodebb
cd nodebb
npm install --production
./nodebb setup

I ended up copying the old config.json file back into the new directory because I was too lazy to copy and paste the secret, but I am otherwise now running a brand spankin' new install of v0.7.2 and I hit the same problem. same EROFS error in /var/log/upstart/nodebb.log after I put the old /etc/init/nodebb.conf back.

I also have a minor problem with the persona theme (.taskbar CSS class has a width of 50% specified in stylesheet.css even after updating the theme to the latest from the ACP), a plugin that completely breaks the service whenever a topic is loaded (nodebb-plugin-topic-badges) and a plugin that tries to turn every link that starts with http:// into a YouTube embed (nodebb-plugin-youtube-lite).

~~The clean install did fix a problem I was having with the chat windows.~~

Nevermind. Updating the theme in the ACP broke the chat windows again, so that's the problem with that one.

julian

Does the error still occur if you delete output.log before starting NodeBB?

Shaun

@julian deleted log file, rebooted, same error and log file does not exist.

Manual ./nodebb start creates log file.
Manual node loader.js --no-silent --no-daemon also creates log file.

It just wont do it from upstart for some reason.

Edit: Doesn't work even with chmod 777 on the output.log file and the containing directory. Really doesn't make any sense to me. Though on further consideration, it might have been broken by a package update from apt-get and I just didn't notice because I hadn't rebooted in a while.