⚠⚠⚠ No longer maintained! See @derhuerst/systemd for an alternative. ⚠⚠⚠

systemd for Node.js

Adds support for running node.js as a socket-activated service under systemd.

More info on the how and why: https://rocketeer.be/articles/deploying-node-js-with-systemd/

For more background on socket activation: http://0pointer.de/blog/projects/socket-activation.html

Obviously, this will only work on Linux distributions with systemd (such as Fedora).

Usage

You can install the latest version via npm:

$ npm install systemd

Require the systemd module and pass 'systemd' as a parameter to listen():

require('systemd');

var http = require('http');
http.createServer(function (req, res) {
    res.writeHead(200, {'Content-Type': 'text/plain'});
    res.end('Hello World\n');
}).listen('systemd');

Install a systemd socket file (e.g.: /etc/systemd/system/node-hello.socket):

[Socket]
ListenStream=1337

[Install]
WantedBy=sockets.target

Install a systemd service file (e.g.: /etc/systemd/system/node-hello.service):

# Adjust according to man 5 systemd.exec

[Service]
ExecStart=/path/to/bin/node /path/to/hello.js
StandardOutput=syslog
User=nobody
Group=nobody

Be sure to substitute the paths to node and your script!

• ⚠ Run node directly or make sure your startup helper scripts can hand over the sockets. npm start probably won't work.

Reload the systemd daemon so that it picks up the new unit files:

$ systemctl --system daemon-reload

Enable and start the socket:

$ systemctl enable node-hello.socket
$ systemctl start node-hello.socket

Check the status of the socket:

$ systemctl status node-hello.socket
node-hello.socket
      Loaded: loaded (/etc/systemd/system/node-hello.socket)
      Active: active (listening) since Sat, 15 Oct 2011 20:27:47 +0200; 2s ago
      CGroup: name=systemd:/system/node-hello.socket

Great, it's running!

Check the status of the service, not running yet:

$ systemctl status node-hello.service
node-hello.service
      Loaded: loaded (/etc/systemd/system/node-hello.service)
      Active: inactive (dead)
      CGroup: name=systemd:/system/node-hello.service

Do a request to your service:

$ curl -i http://localhost:1337/
HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Content-Type: text/plain
Connection: keep-alive
Transfer-Encoding: chunked

Hello World

Check again, now it will be running:

$ systemctl status node-hello.service
node-hello.service
      Loaded: loaded (/etc/systemd/system/node-hello.service)
      Active: active (running) since Sat, 15 Oct 2011 20:32:10 +0200; 38s ago
    Main PID: 1159 (node)
      CGroup: name=systemd:/system/node-hello.service
              └ 1159 /path/to/bin/node /path/to/hello.js

Only listen to systemd when running under systemd

You can make the systemd usage conditional by checking for the systemd environment variable:

var http = require('http');

require('systemd');

var port = process.env.LISTEN_PID > 0 ? 'systemd' : 1337;
http.createServer(function (req, res) {
    res.writeHead(200, {'Content-Type': 'text/plain'});
    res.end('Hello World\n');
}).listen(port);

This makes it possible to run the script stand-alone in development, yet use systemd when started through systemd.

Contributing

A jshint file is included to check code style.

Before submitting a pull request, please check your code. For convenience, I've also added a grunt file.

Install the dev dependencies:

$ npm install --dev

Install the grunt cli if you haven't already done so:

$ npm -g install grunt-cli

Run it:

$ grunt

License

(The MIT License)

Copyright (C) 2011-2014 by Ruben Vermeersch <[email protected]>

Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy
of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal
in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights
to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell
copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is
furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:

The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in
all copies or substantial portions of the Software.

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR
IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY,
FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE
AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER
LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM,
OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN
THE SOFTWARE.