Define PM2 script path with environment variable

Question

I'm building a simple staging CI environment where I define the path of the runnable Node application by an environment variable APP_PATH.

Is it possible to tell PM2 in a process config file to look up the startup script by following the path in the APP_PATH variable?

Like this:

{
  "apps": [
    {
      "name": "my_app",
      "script": "$APP_PATH/app.js"
    }
  ]
}

Currently, I get a [PM2][ERROR] script not found : message from PM2 when starting the above configuration.

In a nutshell: PM2 doesn't resolve the env var defined in the script property. Is there any way to overcome this?

you want to make PM2 to automatically startup your app when reboot happens? — Prasanth Jaya, Apr 12 '17 at 15:44

Prasanth Jaya · Answer 1 · 2017-04-13T10:12:11.220

If you need to do in the same approach. Follow this.

Create a .json file outside your root directory or wherever you need it.

servers.json

[{
  "name":"MyApp",
  "script":"/home/user/app/server.js",
  "instances":"3" //number of instances to start
},
{
  "name":"MySecondApp",
  "script":"/home/user/app2/server.js",
  "instances":"max" //to calculate your number of CPU cores available and run based on the core count
}]

Then run using pm2 start servers.json

This will start the two app with the name and instances mentioned.

Or

With the latest version of PM2 you do not need to write any scripts. Just execute some commands to do the same.

Step 1: First you create your pm2 instances as you need like now many instances you need to run or how many different server you need to run.

Mine is below

Once you apps are started and listed like this.

Step 2: Type pm2 startup. Then you will see a auto generated command by pm2 which helps you to create it as a service.

Step 3: You will see the command you need to run in grey shade. Copy that and run it as root user.

once you run that command you will see result like below.

Step 4: The run pm2 save so the present pm2 list of process will be save for startup script.

That's it..

Test it by rebooting your server and check using pm2 ls or pm2 status.

In case you want to update the pm2 process list again the use pm2 update this will take the current process list and update the startup script.

Hope this helps!!!

Thanks for this description but it doesn't answer my question. — bearlysophisticated, Apr 13 '17 at 09:33
you are using one outdated thing, but the latest have some quick easy way for the same functionality then you can go ahead with the latest right? — Prasanth Jaya, Apr 13 '17 at 10:01
I understand I can do app setup and reload via both JSON config and CLI commands. My problem is that if I use a config JSON, than env var in `script` property doesn't get resolved. — bearlysophisticated, Apr 13 '17 at 11:12
So far i know thats not possible, either you can do like this http://stackoverflow.com/a/27090755/2148827 you can this approach with pm2. — Prasanth Jaya, Apr 13 '17 at 18:01

Define PM2 script path with environment variable

1 Answers1