pm2-meteor is a CLI tool, that will deploy your Meteor app (from your dev machine or from git) as Nodejs bundle and run it with PM2. (tested with Ubuntu and Freebsd hosts)

Features

1. you can deploy from a git repo
2. you can deploy to almost every server construction (also freebsd jails)
3. it uses PM2 to run your Meteor Apps
4. reads your Meteor settings file from a path for you
5. you can configure the directory where your apps will be deployed
6. you can scale your App in realtime with one command
7. make generic pm2-meteor settings with a pm-meteor.js file which module.exports settings

Why PM2?

PM2 is a process manager, that will run/restart Nodejs apps, just like forever - but:

• PM2 has build in load balancing and scaling features
• PM2 also runs bash / python / ruby / coffee / php / perl
• We tested PM2 with some of our complex Meteor apps and it performed well (while forever crashed them without any notable reasons)
• more under pm2.keymetrics.io

Installation (on your dev machine)

$ npm i -g pm2-meteor

You should have Nodejs, npm and PM2 installed on your host machine.
pm2-meteor won't install global tools on your server.

Usage

1. Init a pm2-meteor.json config file

$ mkdir ninjaApp_deployment
$ cd ninjaApp_deployment
$ pm2-meteor init

(The pm2-meteor wizzard will ask you some questions and prefill the configuration file.)

2. Complete the generated pm2-meteor.json file

{
  // the name of your app
  "appName": "ninjaApp",

  // where your app is located
  "appLocation": {
    "local": "~/Workspace/ninjaApp"
  // or you can also deploy with git ;-)
  // (use username:[email protected]/... for authentication)
  //   "git": "https://user:[email protected]/andruschka/ninjaApp",
  //   "branch": "production"
  },

  // where the meteor settings are located
  "meteorSettingsLocation":"~/Workspace/ninjaApp/settings/production.json",
  "meteorSettingsInRepo": false,
  // or RELATIVE to app root, if settings are located in git repo (this is not a good idea...)
  // "meteorSettingsLocation":"settings/production.json",
  // "meteorSettingsInRepo": true,

  // build flags for Meteor
  "meteorBuildFlags": "--architecture os.linux.x86_64"

  // runs as command in the meteor app before building
  "prebuildScript": "",
  // say you are still using meteorite and want to install deps before deploying:
  // "prebuildScript": "mrt install",

  // the env vars
  // (METEOR_SETTINGS will be generated from your meteor-settings file)
  "env": {
    "ROOT_URL": "http://ninja.my-host.com",
    "PORT": 4004,
    // optional - set some additional free ports if you want to use fork_mode with several instances
    // (you need handle loadbalancing yourself!)
    // "FORK_PORTS": [4005, 4006]
    "MONGO_URL": "mongodb://localhost:27017/ninjaApp"
  },

  // infos for deployment
  "server": {
    "host": "my-host.com",
    "username": "nodejs",
    "password": "trustno1",
    // or auth with pem file
    // "pem":"~/.ssh/id_rsa",
    // optional - set port
    // "port": "22",

    // optional - object whose key and value will be passed as -o key:value to any ssh session
    // "ssh": {} 

    // this dir will contain your apps
    // (app will be deployed to /opt/pm2-meteor/ninjaApp)
    "deploymentDir": "/opt/pm2-meteor",

    // optional - will source a profile before executing tasks on the server
    // "loadProfile": "",

    // exec mode for pm2
    "exec_mode": "cluster_mode",
    "instances": 2,

    // you can also set another interpreter (e.g. use another node version / nvm - see pm2 docs)
    "interpreter": ""
  },
  // optional - set this one if you want to undeploy your app
  // "allowUndeploy": true

  // optional - set this if you want to specify timestamps to the pm2 log-files
  // "log_date_format": "YYYY-MM-DD HH:mm Z"
}

3. Deploy your app

$ pm2-meteor deploy

If you already have deployed this app before, the old app tar-bundle will be moved to a ./backup directory.

If you want to only reconfigure settings / env changes

$ pm2-meteor reconfig

Will send new pm2-env file to server and hard-restart your app.

If something goes wrong: revert to previous version

$ pm2-meteor revert

Will unzip the old bundle.tar.gz and restart the app

4. Control your app

$ pm2-meteor start
$ pm2-meteor stop
$ pm2-meteor status
$ pm2-meteor logs

5. SCALE your app

Start 2 more instances:

$ pm2-meteor scale +2

Down/Upgrade to 4 instances

$ pm2-meteor scale 4

6. Undeploy your app (DANGEROUS)

To delete your app from the PM2 deamon and delete all app files add "allowUndeploy":true to your pm2-meteor setting, then:

$ pm2-meteor undeploy

If you want to deploy the bundle by yourself

$ pm2-meteor generateBundle

then transfer it to your machine, unzip it and run

$ pm2 start pm2-env.json

Example configs

Deploy from a private github repo and start 2 load balanced instances:

{
  "appName": "todos",
  "appLocation": {
    "git": "https://andruschka:[email protected]/andruschka/todos.git",
    "branch": "master"
  },
  "meteorSettingsLocation": "settings/production.json",
  "prebuildScript": "mrt install",
  "meteorBuildFlags": "--architecture os.linux.x86_64",
  "env": {
    "PORT": 3000,
    "MONGO_URL": "mongodb://localhost:27017/todos",
    "ROOT_URL": "http://todos.my-host.co"
  },
  "server": {
    "host": "my-host.co",
    "username": "nodejs",
    "pem": "~/.ssh/id_rsa",
    "deploymentDir": "/home/nodejs/",
    "exec_mode": "cluster_mode",
    "instances": 2
  }
}

Deploy a local app and run app in fork-mode:
(using a pm2-meteor.js file and passing the MONGO_URL via bash env var e.g.: MONGO_URL='mongodb://user:pw@host/db' pm2-meteor deploy )

const appName = "todos"
const mongoUrl = process.env.MONGO_URL

module.exports = {
  appName, // <~ just ES6 stuff for  appName: appName
  "appLocation": {
    "local":"~/Workspace/todos"
  },
  "meteorSettingsLocation": "~/Workspace/todos/settings/production.json",
  "prebuildScript": "",
  "meteorBuildFlags": "--architecture os.linux.x86_64",
  "env": {
    "PORT": 3000,
    "MONGO_URL": mongoUrl, // <~
    "ROOT_URL": "http://todos.my-host.co"
  },
  "server": {
    "host": "my-host.co",
    "username": "nodejs",
    "pem": "~/.ssh/id_rsa",
    "deploymentDir": "/home/nodejs/",
    "exec_mode": "fork_mode",
    "instances": 1
  }
}

Deploy a local app and run app in fork-mode with several instances (for managing load balancing yourself):

{
  "appName": "todos",
  "appLocation": {
    "local":"~/Workspace/todos"
  },
  "meteorSettingsLocation": "~/Workspace/todos/settings/production.json",
  "prebuildScript": "",
  "meteorBuildFlags": "--architecture os.linux.x86_64",
  "env": {
    "PORT": 3000, // first fork_mode instande willl use this port ...
    "MONGO_URL": "mongodb://localhost:27017/todos",
    "ROOT_URL": "http://todos.my-host.co"
  },
  "server": {
    "host": "my-host.co",
    "username": "nodejs",
    "pem": "~/.ssh/id_rsa",
    "deploymentDir": "/home/nodejs/",
    "exec_mode": "fork_mode",
    "instances": 3,
    "freePorts": [3002, 3003] // ... further fork_mode instances will use this ports
  }
}