Golang : How to run Golang application such as web server in the background or as daemon?




Problem :

You have completed your Golang program and want to run it as a background process or daemon. For example, you want your Web server to run as a service.

Solutions :

Depending on the operating system your program is sitting on, these are some of the most common examples :

CentOS/Ubuntu or Linux/Unix in general :

 >nohup ./myexecutable &

or

 >nohup ./myexecutable & disown

The nohup command tells the shell to ignore the HANGUP signal and the & command tells the shell to run the program in the background. To bring the program back to the foreground, issue this command :

 >fg %1

and you can press Control-Z to kill it.

In the event you want to kill the process from command line, you can find out the PID(process ID) with

 >ps -ef | grep <your program name>

For example :

 >ping www.yahoo.com &
 >ps -ef | grep yahoo
 > 501 903 1 0  6:10PM ?? 0:00.01 ping www.yahoo.com 

then you can issue the command to kill process ID 903

 >kill 903

Windows :

Register your Golang program with NSSM (the Non-Sucking Service Manager). For example :

 nssm install YourProgram c:\YourProgram.exe

and to delete your program from the Windows service register, use the native service control :

 sc delete YourProgram

NOTE : Your Golang program can write to Windows Event Log with this package http://godoc.org/code.google.com/p/winsvc

You might want to explore how to create daemonize Golang program easily with this tutorial :

https://www.socketloop.com/tutorials/golang-terminate-stay-resident-or-daemonize-your-program

  See also : Golang : Terminate-stay-resident or daemonize your program?





By Adam Ng

IF you gain some knowledge or the information here solved your programming problem. Please consider donating to the less fortunate or some charities that you like. Apart from donation, planting trees, volunteering or reducing your carbon footprint will be great too.


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