Doing a cleanup action just before Node.js exits

Question

I want to tell Node.js to always do something just before it exits, for whatever reason — Ctrl+C, an exception, or any other reason.

I tried this:

process.on('exit', function (){
    console.log('Goodbye!');
});

I started the process, killed it, and nothing happened. I started it again, pressed Ctrl+C, and still nothing happened...

Answer 1

UPDATE:

You can register a handler for `process.on('exit')` and in any other case(`SIGINT` or unhandled exception) to call `process.exit()`

process.stdin.resume();//so the program will not close instantly

function exitHandler(options, exitCode) {
    if (options.cleanup) console.log('clean');
    if (exitCode || exitCode === 0) console.log(exitCode);
    if (options.exit) process.exit();
}

//do something when app is closing
process.on('exit', exitHandler.bind(null,{cleanup:true}));

//catches ctrl+c event
process.on('SIGINT', exitHandler.bind(null, {exit:true}));

// catches "kill pid" (for example: nodemon restart)
process.on('SIGUSR1', exitHandler.bind(null, {exit:true}));
process.on('SIGUSR2', exitHandler.bind(null, {exit:true}));

//catches uncaught exceptions
process.on('uncaughtException', exitHandler.bind(null, {exit:true}));

This only works if you call synchronous code inside the handler, otherwise it will call the handler indefinitely

Answer 2

The script below allows having a single handler for all exit conditions. It uses an app specific callback function to perform custom cleanup code.

cleanup.js

// Object to capture process exits and call app specific cleanup function

function noOp() {};

exports.Cleanup = function Cleanup(callback) {

  // attach user callback to the process event emitter
  // if no callback, it will still exit gracefully on Ctrl-C
  callback = callback || noOp;
  process.on('cleanup',callback);

  // do app specific cleaning before exiting
  process.on('exit', function () {
    process.emit('cleanup');
  });

  // catch ctrl+c event and exit normally
  process.on('SIGINT', function () {
    console.log('Ctrl-C...');
    process.exit(2);
  });

  //catch uncaught exceptions, trace, then exit normally
  process.on('uncaughtException', function(e) {
    console.log('Uncaught Exception...');
    console.log(e.stack);
    process.exit(99);
  });
};

This code intercepts uncaught exceptions, Ctrl+C and normal exit events. It then calls a single optional user cleanup callback function before exiting, handling all exit conditions with a single object.

The module simply extends the process object instead of defining another event emitter. Without an app specific callback the cleanup defaults to a no op function. This was sufficient for my use where child processes were left running when exiting by Ctrl+C.

You can easily add other exit events such as SIGHUP as desired. Note: per NodeJS manual, SIGKILL cannot have a listener. The test code below demonstrates various ways of using cleanup.js

// test cleanup.js on version 0.10.21

// loads module and registers app specific cleanup callback...
var cleanup = require('./cleanup').Cleanup(myCleanup);
//var cleanup = require('./cleanup').Cleanup(); // will call noOp

// defines app specific callback...
function myCleanup() {
  console.log('App specific cleanup code...');
};

// All of the following code is only needed for test demo

// Prevents the program from closing instantly
process.stdin.resume();

// Emits an uncaught exception when called because module does not exist
function error() {
  console.log('error');
  var x = require('');
};

// Try each of the following one at a time:

// Uncomment the next line to test exiting on an uncaught exception
//setTimeout(error,2000);

// Uncomment the next line to test exiting normally
//setTimeout(function(){process.exit(3)}, 2000);

// Type Ctrl-C to test forced exit 

Answer 3

This catches every exit event I can find that can be handled. Seems quite reliable and clean so far.

[`exit`, `SIGINT`, `SIGUSR1`, `SIGUSR2`, `uncaughtException`, `SIGTERM`].forEach((eventType) => {
  process.on(eventType, cleanUpServer.bind(null, eventType));
})

Answer 4

"exit" is an event that gets triggered when node finish it's event loop internally, it's not triggered when you terminate the process externally.

What you're looking for is executing something on a SIGINT.

The docs at http://nodejs.org/api/process.html#process_signal_events give an example:

Example of listening for SIGINT:

// Start reading from stdin so we don't exit.
process.stdin.resume();

process.on('SIGINT', function () {
  console.log('Got SIGINT.  Press Control-D to exit.');
});

Note: this seems to interrupt the sigint and you would need to call process.exit() when you finish with your code.

Answer 5

function fnAsyncTest(callback) {
    require('fs').writeFile('async.txt', 'bye!', callback);
}

function fnSyncTest() {
    for (var i = 0; i < 10; i++) {}
}

function killProcess() {

    if (process.exitTimeoutId) {
        return;
    }

    process.exitTimeoutId = setTimeout(() => process.exit, 5000);
    console.log('process will exit in 5 seconds');

    fnAsyncTest(function() {
        console.log('async op. done', arguments);
    });

    if (!fnSyncTest()) {
        console.log('sync op. done');
    }
}

// https://nodejs.org/api/process.html#process_signal_events
process.on('SIGTERM', killProcess);
process.on('SIGINT', killProcess);

process.on('uncaughtException', function(e) {

    console.log('[uncaughtException] app will be terminated: ', e.stack);

    killProcess();
    /**
     * @https://nodejs.org/api/process.html#process_event_uncaughtexception
     *  
     * 'uncaughtException' should be used to perform synchronous cleanup before shutting down the process. 
     * It is not safe to resume normal operation after 'uncaughtException'. 
     * If you do use it, restart your application after every unhandled exception!
     * 
     * You have been warned.
     */
});

console.log('App is running...');
console.log('Try to press CTRL+C or SIGNAL the process with PID: ', process.pid);

process.stdin.resume();
// just for testing

Answer 6

Just wanted to mention death package here: https://github.com/jprichardson/node-death

Example:

var ON_DEATH = require('death')({uncaughtException: true}); //this is intentionally ugly

ON_DEATH(function(signal, err) {
  //clean up code here
})

Answer 7

async-exit-hook seems to be the most up-to-date solution for handling this problem. It's a forked/re-written version of exit-hook that supports async code before exiting.

Answer 8

I need to do an asynchronous cleanup action on exit, none of the answers in this question worked for me.

So I tried it myself, and finally found this:

process.once('uncaughtException', async () => {
  await cleanup()

  process.exit(0)
})

process.once('SIGINT', () => { throw new Error() })

Answer 9

After playing around with other answer, here is my solution for this task. Implementing this way helps me centralize cleanup in one place, preventing double handling the cleanup.

1. I would like to route all other exiting codes to 'exit' code.

const others = [`SIGINT`, `SIGUSR1`, `SIGUSR2`, `uncaughtException`, `SIGTERM`]
others.forEach((eventType) => {
    process.on(eventType, exitRouter.bind(null, { exit: true }));
})

2. What the exitRouter does is calling process.exit()

function exitRouter(options, exitCode) {
   if (exitCode || exitCode === 0) console.log(`ExitCode ${exitCode}`);
   if (options.exit) process.exit();
}

3. On 'exit', handle the clean up with a new function

function exitHandler(exitCode) {
  console.log(`ExitCode ${exitCode}`);
  console.log('Exiting finally...')
}

process.on('exit', exitHandler)

For the demo purpose, this is link to my gist. In the file, i add a setTimeout to fake the process running.

If you run node node-exit-demo.js and do nothing, then after 2 seconds, you see the log:

The service is finish after a while.
ExitCode 0
Exiting finally...

Else if before the service finish, you terminate by ctrl+C, you'll see:

^CExitCode SIGINT
ExitCode 0
Exiting finally...

What happened is the Node process exited initially with code SIGINT, then it routes to process.exit() and finally exited with exit code 0.

Answer 10

io.js has an exit and a beforeExit event, which do what you want.

Answer 11

To those of you running npm scripts that would like to perform an action before the process finishes through the script line definition without extra file definition you can just add a semicolon (checked on mac)

for example:

"start": "npm run add-hosts-to-hosts-file && npm run start ; npm run clear-hosts-from-hosts file",

this covers the scenario for Ctrl + C. Might also cover other cases.

Answer 12

In the case where the process was spawned by another node process, like:

var child = spawn('gulp', ['watch'], {
    stdio: 'inherit',
});

And you try to kill it later, via:

child.kill();

This is how you handle the event [on the child]:

process.on('SIGTERM', function() {
    console.log('Goodbye!');
});

Answer 13

Here's a nice hack for windows

process.on('exit', async () => {
    require('fs').writeFileSync('./tmp.js', 'crash', 'utf-8')
});