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What problem does PM2 solve for running a Node.js application in production, beyond just executing 'node server.js'? How do you configure PM2 using an ecosystem.config.js file rather than passing options directly on the command line? How does PM2's built-in log management work, and how would you configure log rotation to prevent log files from growing unbounded? What does PM2's built-in monitoring dashboard (pm2 monit, or PM2 Plus) show, and what metrics are most useful for production operations?
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How do you configure PM2 to automatically restart your Node.js application after a server reboot?

Intermediate

Answer

PM2's 'startup' command generates and configures a system-specific init script (systemd on most modern Linux distributions) that starts PM2 itself automatically on system boot; combined with 'pm2 save' (which persists the current list of running processes to a dump file), PM2 will automatically restore and restart every previously running application after the server reboots, without any process being lost.
pm2 startup           # generates and prints a system-specific command to run
# (run the printed command, e.g. with sudo, to actually register the startup script)

pm2 save              # saves the currently running process list
# After a reboot, PM2 automatically restores everything from this saved list
Real-world example A production server that was manually restarted for a security patch came back up with the Node.js API not running at all until an engineer noticed and manually started it again; running 'pm2 startup' and 'pm2 save' beforehand ensures the application resumes automatically on any future reboot without manual intervention.

Common follow-ups: What happens if 'pm2 save' isn't run after adding a new application, and the server later reboots?;How does this systemd-based startup mechanism differ from relying on a Docker container's own restart policy in a containerized deployment?

Cloud & DevOps;Docker & Containerization for Node.js
All 5 Deployment & Process Managers (PM2) questions