Restart Pm2 Process Every Day Using A Node Script

To run NodeJS scripts and apps constantly, we usually use pm2 (some prefer forever). However, some scripts require a brute force restart from time to time as they do not fare better in uninterrupted longer runs. Mostly, the reason is memory leaks of packages you are bound to use but have no control over. There could be other reasons too.

There must surely be other and more elegant ways to do this, but a simple node script that also shows you the log of all previous restarts is what I have used when I needed one.

For this you need to install cron module. Then paste and save the below script in a file, and run it either with pm2 or node.

const { exec } = require('child_process');
const CronJob = require('cron').CronJob;
const restartCommand = "pm2 restart 0";
const listCommand = "pm2 list";

console.log("Starting App Restarter");

const restartApp = function () {
  exec(restartCommand, (err, stdout, stderr) => {
    if (!err && !stderr) {
      console.log(new Date(), `App restarted!!!`);
      listApps();
    }
    else if (err || stderr) {
      console.log(new Date(), `Error in executing ${restartCommand}`, err || stderr);
    }
  });
}

function listApps() {
  exec(listCommand, (err, stdout, stderr) => {
    // handle err if you like!
    console.log(`pm2 list`);
    console.log(`${stdout}`);
  });
}

new CronJob('0 0 2 * * *', function() {
  console.log('2 am Los_Angeles time, restarting the zombieApp');
  restartApp();
}, null, true, 'America/Los_Angeles');

We need exec from child_process (child_process comes with node)
CronJob will run our given function at the given time
“pm2 restart 0” is our restartCommand. 0 is the id of the process. Change it with the id you have
listCommand is to list the pm2 processes after restart, just for our reference
With new CronJob we actually set up a cron job that is supposed to run at 2 am, Los Angeles time each day. It calls restartApp()
restartApp executes the restartCommand, and on success calls listApps()
Lastly, listApps executes the listCommand and we get to see the running processes after the restart

3 day logs of the above cronjob will look something like this:

 
  2 am Los_Angeles time, restarting the zombieApp
  2019-11-09T10:00:00.945Z 'App restarted!!!'
  pm2 list
  ┌──────────────┬────┬──────┬──────┬────────┬─────────┬────────┬─────┬───────────┬──────────┐
  │ App name     │ id │ mode │ pid  │ status │ restart │ uptime │ cpu │ mem       │ watching │
  ├──────────────┼────┼──────┼──────┼────────┼─────────┼────────┼─────┼───────────┼──────────┤
  │ zombieApp    │ 0  │ fork │ 5011 │ online │ 146     │ 1s     │ 33% │ 37.6 MB   │ disabled │
  │ someOtherApp │ 1  │ fork │ 5351 │ online │ 0       │ 4M     │ 0%  │ 19.5 MB   │ disabled │
  └──────────────┴────┴──────┴──────┴────────┴─────────┴────────┴─────┴───────────┴──────────┘
  Use `pm2 show <id|name>` to get more details about an app

  2 am Los_Angeles time, restarting the zombieApp
  2019-11-10T10:00:00.775Z 'App restarted!!!'
  pm2 list
  ┌──────────────┬────┬──────┬───────┬────────┬─────────┬────────┬─────┬───────────┬──────────┐
  │ App name     │ id │ mode │ pid   │ status │ restart │ uptime │ cpu │ mem       │ watching │
  ├──────────────┼────┼──────┼───────┼────────┼─────────┼────────┼─────┼───────────┼──────────┤
  │ zombieApp    │ 0  │ fork │ 32700 │ online │ 147     │ 1s     │ 0%  │ 33.9 MB   │ disabled │
  │ someOtherApp │ 1  │ fork │ 5351  │ online │ 0       │ 4M     │ 0%  │ 14.9 MB   │ disabled │
  └──────────────┴────┴──────┴───────┴────────┴─────────┴────────┴─────┴───────────┴──────────┘
  Use `pm2 show <id|name>` to get more details about an app

  2 am Los_Angeles time, restarting the zombieApp
  2019-11-11T10:00:02.586Z 'App restarted!!!'
  pm2 list
  ┌──────────────┬────┬──────┬──────┬────────┬─────────┬────────┬──────┬───────────┬──────────┐
  │ App name     │ id │ mode │ pid  │ status │ restart │ uptime │ cpu  │ mem       │ watching │
  ├──────────────┼────┼──────┼──────┼────────┼─────────┼────────┼──────┼───────────┼──────────┤
  │ zombieApp    │ 0  │ fork │ 3105 │ online │ 148     │ 0s     │ 100% │ 35.1 MB   │ disabled │
  │ someOtherApp │ 1  │ fork │ 5351 │ online │ 0       │ 4M     │ 0%   │ 18.8 MB   │ disabled │
  └──────────────┴────┴──────┴──────┴────────┴─────────┴────────┴──────┴───────────┴──────────┘
  Use `pm2 show <id|name>` to get more details about an app

nodejs pm2 script

Restart Pm2 Process Every Day Using A Node Script

A brute force yet effective way to restart scripts that need it

See also