Services and processes

Three tabs manage things that run on a server. Which one you want depends on how the thing was started.

Services (systemd)#

The Services tab manages systemd units — nginx, your database, the agent itself. Use it to check whether something is running and to restart it.

Restarting nginx is the common one, usually after a configuration change.

PM2#

The PM2 tab manages Node processes running under PM2, including restarting them and reading their output.

If you deployed a project with the node_pm2 runtime, this is where the process lives.

Software#

The Software tab shows what is installed and lets you install what a project needs. This is gated by its own permission (service.install), so someone who can deploy does not automatically get to install packages.

Restart, do not reboot#

When an application is misbehaving, restart the application. Rebooting the whole machine takes everything else down with it — other projects, the database, the agent — to fix one process.

The order to try:

1. Restart the project from the Projects screen.
2. Restart the service from Services or PM2.
3. Reboot the machine only if the machine itself is wrong.

Why the separate permissions#

Restarting an application and removing a container are different sizes of action, so they are different permissions. You can let someone bounce a stuck process at 3am without also letting them uninstall your database. See Roles and permissions.