startup nodebb after server reboot

josef

What is the best way to configure nodebb to start automatically after restarting the server?
I did it with pm2 -

pm2 start app.js --name "nodebb"

and then

pm2 startup

The disadvantage of this is that it is not possible to restart through the ACP, only using pm2 restart nodebb
What is the right way to do it?

FrankM

I start my Nodebb with systemd on Debian Bookworm 12.

[Unit]
Description=NodeBB
Documentation=https://docs.nodebb.org
After=system.slice multi-user.target mongod.service

[Service]
Type=forking
User=USER

StandardOutput=syslog
StandardError=syslog
SyslogIdentifier=nodebb

WorkingDirectory=/home/USER/nodebb
PIDFile=/home/USER/nodebb/pidfile
ExecStart=/usr/bin/node loader.js
Restart=always

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

And restart from ACP works fine.

josef

@FrankM Thanks! Could you maybe elaborate on how I use it? I don't know enough about systemd
Do I have to save it as a file in a certain location?

FrankM

Create an file

/etc/systemd/system/nodebb.service

Stop your nodebb and then start it with

systemctl enable nodebb.service
systemctl start nodebb.service

More to read -> https://docs.nodebb.org/configuring/running/

陈洁

It can be combined with systemctl and tmux for script startup, it is very convenient tmux a can go back to the background to see real-time logs

Here's my server startup script for reference, tmux is too convenient for me!

#!/bin/zsh

# Define the function that sends the command
send_command() {
    tmux send -t $1 $2 Enter
}

# Close and delete the tmux session named "db".
tmux kill-session -t "db"

# Create a tmux session named "db".
tmux new -t "db" -d
tmux rename-window -t "db:1" "mongod"

# n the "mongod" pane, execute the command
send_command "mongod" "cd /home/web/MongoDB/bin/ && ./mongod --config ./mongo.conf"

# Creating Horizontally Split Panes
tmux split-window -h -t "db:mongod" -d
tmux select-window -t "db:mongod"
tmux select-pane -t "2"

# Close and delete the tmux session named "nodebb".
tmux kill-session -t "nodebb"

# Create a tmux session called "nodebb".
tmux new -t "nodebb" -d
tmux rename-window -t "nodebb:1" "grunt"

# Execute the command in the "grunt" pane.
send_command "nodebb" "cd /home/web/NodeBB/ && ./nodebb slog"

# Creating Horizontally Split Panes
tmux split-window -h -t "nodebb:grunt" -d
tmux select-window -t "nodebb:grunt"
tmux select-pane -t "2"


exit 0

[Unit]
Description=Startup Script
After=network.target

[Service]
Type=forking
Environment=TERM=xterm-256color
ExecStartPre=/usr/bin/zsh -c 'source $HOME/.zshrc'
ExecStart=/root/auto_script/startup.sh
User=root
Group=root

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

josef

Thanks to everyone who helped!
While implementing the solution provided by @FrankM I noticed that the file being loaded is loader.js and not app.js, and when I ran loader.js with pm2 (pm2 start loader.js --name "nodebb"), restarting from ACP works great!
So maybe on another occasion I'll try the clean systemd method
At the moment I prefer to continue using pm2 as a central tool for all the apps on my server, including nodebb
Thanks again

julian

@陈洁 wow, that is definitely a power user setup!

One thing I have struggled with is proper logging with systemd. At some point it seemed to stop emitting logs properly, and I could only either have logs sent to the journal for viewing with journalctl, or output to the regular log file at logs/output.log, not both.

Regardless, @josef I'm glad you got it working