upstart config file for running node.js on a linux machine. This uses nodemon to allow file changes when pulled from git. This also specifies the NODE_ENV environment variable as "production" which would trigger the app to production mode (as opposed to development). Remove the environment variable if development environment is desired.

myapp.conf

#!upstart
description "nodemon server for myapp"
author      "ubuntu"

start on startup
stop on shutdown

script
    export HOME="/home/ubuntu/git/myapp"

    echo $$ > /var/run/myapp.pid
    cd $HOME
    exec sudo -u ubuntu NODE_ENV=production PORT=3000 /usr/bin/nodemon app.js >> /var/log/myapp.sys.log 2>&1
end script

pre-start script
    # Date format same as (new Date()).toISOString() for consistency
    echo "[`date -u +%Y-%m-%dT%T.%3NZ`] (sys) Starting" >> /var/log/myapp.sys.log
end script

pre-stop script
    rm /var/run/myapp.pid
    echo "[`date -u +%Y-%m-%dT%T.%3NZ`] (sys) Stopping" >> /var/log/myapp.sys.log
end script

http://howtonode.org/deploying-node-upstart-monit

Location: /etc/init/myapp.conf

Start/Stop:
sudo service myapp start
sudo service myapp stop

Logs:
/var/log/myapp.sys.log