I find Node-RED really amazing but the lack of being able to manage it as a daemon quite annoyed me.
I created an init script and a systemd unit configuration to be able to manage Node-RED as any service on my Raspberry Pi.
Init.d
#!/bin/bash
### BEGIN INIT INFO
# Provides: node-red
# Required-Start: $local_fs $remote_fs $network
# Required-Stop: $local_fs $remote_fs $network
# Default-Start: 2 3 4 5
# Default-Stop: 0 1 6
# Short-Description: Start or stop the node-red server
### END INIT INFO
# Can be downloaded and installed in one go by using this command
# sudo wget -O /tmp/download https://gist.github.com/Belphemur/cf91100f81f2b37b3e94/download && sudo tar -zxf /tmp/download --strip-components 1 -C /etc/init.d && sudo chmod +x /etc/init.d/node-red && sudo update-rc.d node-red defaults
# User that launches node-RED (it's advised to create a new user for Node-RED)
# You can do : sudo useradd node-red
# then change the USER=root by USER=node-red
# if you change the user, don't forget to also change the ownership of the log file (and create it if it doesn't exist):
# sudo chown NEWUSER /var/log/node-red.log
# else the log won't be writtable
USER=root
# The location of Node-RED configuration, not mandatory, leave empty/commented to let
# Node-RED decides.
#USER_DIR='/home/pi/node-red/'
# DONT'T CHANGE unless you know what you're doing
NAME=node-red
DAEMON=/usr/local/bin/node-red-pi
OPTIONS="--max-old-space-size=128"
if [ -n "$USER_DIR" ]; then
OPTIONS="$OPTIONS --userDir=$USER_DIR"
fi
LOG='/var/log/node-red.log'
PIDFILE=/var/run/node-red.pid
. /lib/lsb/init-functions
start_daemon () {
start-stop-daemon --start --background \
--chuid $USER --name $NAME \
$START_STOP_OPTIONS --make-pidfile --pidfile $PIDFILE \
--startas /bin/bash -- -c "exec $DAEMON $OPTIONS >> $LOG 2>&1"
log_end_msg 0
}
case "$1" in
start)
log_daemon_msg "Starting daemon" "$NAME"
start_daemon
;;
stop)
log_daemon_msg "Stopping daemon" "$NAME"
start-stop-daemon --stop --quiet \
--chuid $USER \
--exec $DAEMON --pidfile $PIDFILE --retry 30 \
--oknodo || log_end_msg $?
log_end_msg 0
;;
restart)
$0 stop
sleep 5
$0 start
;;
status)
status_of_proc "$DAEMON" "$NAME"
exit $?
;;
*)
echo "Usage: $0 {start|stop|restart}"
exit 1
esac
exit 0
systemd
# This script work on any system using systemd as the init process.
# It works on Debian/Raspbian Jessie.
# If you have Debian/Rapbian Wheezy and want to use this script with systemd
# follow the information here : https://wiki.debian.org/systemd
# To easily download, install and set at startup:
# wget -O /tmp/download https://gist.github.com/Belphemur/3f6d3bf211b0e8a18d93/download && sudo tar -zxf /tmp/download --strip-components 1 -C /etc/systemd/system/ && sudo systemctl --reload-daemon && sudo systemctl enable Node-RED
# To consult the log : journalctl -u Node-RED
[Unit]
Description=Node-RED is a tool for wiring together hardware devices, APIs and online services in new and interesting ways.
After=syslog.target network.target
Documentation=http://nodered.org/
[Service]
Environment="NODE_OPTIONS=--max-old-space-size=128"
Environment="NODE_RED_OPTIONS=-v"
#Full Path to Node.js
ExecStart=/usr/local/bin/node $NODE_OPTIONS red.js $NODE_RED_OPTIONS
WorkingDirectory=/home/pi/node-red/
# User/Group that launches node-RED (it's advised to create a new user for Node-RED)
# You can do : sudo useradd node-red
# then change the User=root by User=node-red
User=root
Group=root
Nice=10
SyslogIdentifier=Node-RED
StandardOutput=syslog
# Make Node-RED restart if it fails
Restart=on-failure
# Node-RED need a SIGINT to be notified to stop
KillSignal=SIGINT
[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target
Written by:Antoine Aflalo
I had better luck with the auto install when running it this way:
sudo apt-get install zip unzip
sudo wget -O /tmp/download https://gist.github.com/Belphemur/cf91100f81f2b37b3e94/download && sudo unzip -j /tmp/download -d /etc/init.d && sudo chmod +x /etc/init.d/node-red && sudo update-rc.d node-red defaults
Hello Richard,
I admit I assumed most configuration came with unzip installed.
But you’re right, the first step is needed if you don’t have unzip installed.