Run node app in background

Running a script in the background in linux can be done using nohup, using nohup we can run node application in the background

$ nohup node server.js > /dev/null 2>&1 &

nohup means: Do not terminate this process even when the stty is cut off
> /dev/null means: stdout goes to /dev/null (which is a dummy device that does not record any output)
2>&1 means: stderr also goes to the stdout (which is already redirected to /dev/null) You may replace &1 with a file path to keep a log of errors, e.g.: 2>/tmp/myLog
& at the end means: run this command as a background task

Forever

Forever is another solution for Node scripts

$ npm install forever -g

$ forever start /nodeapp/index.js
$ forever restart /nodeapp/index.js
$ forever stop /nodeapp/index.js
$ forever list

You can stop the process using the kill command as well:

First you need to know which process ID to kill, list all the process running node by running:

ps axl | grep node

The second column of your result is probably the PID, take that number and run the command below:

kill -9 [PID]