Quick Start
In seconds, this Quick Start tutorial will show you how to set up to production a Node.js application with PM2.
Installation
With npm:
npm install pm2 -g
With yarn:
yarn global add pm2
With debian, use the install script:
apt update && apt install sudo curl && curl -sL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Unitech/pm2/master/packager/setup.deb.sh | sudo -E bash -
With docker, follow this tutorial.
CLI autocompletion
Complete your installation with the CLI autocompletion:
pm2 completion install
Manage multiple processes
PM2 keeps a list of your processes to be able to start, restart and stop them easily.
All your apps are started in the background, letting you access to the command line. Use the PM2 CLI to interact with your apps.
Process list
Add processes to your process list with the start and delete commands.
# start and add a process to your list
pm2 start app.js
# show your list
pm2 ls
# stop and delete a process from the list
pm2 delete app
Default process name is the filename without .js (eg: app for app.js). Use --nameor -n to change.
Routine
Once in your process list, use the process name to interact with your application.
# stop the process (kill the process but keep it in the process list)
pm2 stop app
# start the process
pm2 start app
# both stop and start
pm2 restart app
You can then setup a startup script, to automatically start your process list across machine restarts.
Access your logs
Access your logs in realtime with pm2 logs app.
Consult your logs history files in the ~/.pm2/logs folder.
Clusterize
The cluster mode scales your app accross all CPUs available, without any code modifications.
Before using the load balancer, make sure your application is stateless, meaning that no local data is stored in the process (sessions/websocket connections, session-memory and related).
To start in cluster mode, pass the -i option followed by the number of clusters that you want:
pm2 start app.js -i 4
or, to automatically detect number of CPUs available:
pm2 start app.js -i max
Use reload instead of restart for 0-seconds downtime reloads:
pm2 reload app