Recently I discovered my Node.js server running in a Docker container not exiting properly. It dropped open connections and left the database connection open. Simple to solve, I thought, listen and handle the exit signal with process.on('SIGINT'). Yet the existence of this post, like a bad movie trailer giving away the plot, spoils the surprise it is not that simple.
Let us take a look at an example server based on the official ‘Dockerizing Node.js’ guide. The dockerfile reads:
FROM node:8-alpine
ENV NODE_ENV production
WORKDIR /app
# Install app dependencies
COPY package.json .
RUN npm install
# Bundle app source
COPY src ./src
EXPOSE ${PORT:-80}
USER node
CMD [ "npm", "start" ]
And the relevant JavaScript:
const http = require('http');
const server = http.createServer();
server.listen(0);
process.on('SIGINT', function() {
console.log('Closing server');
server.close(process.exit);
});
Running the server in the terminal with npm start and sending the SIGINT signal to exit, by hitting Ctrl + C, logs the expected Closing server. But running in a container with docker run exampleServer does not. Trying to exit does nothing on the first try. The second time it does exit, but without logging. The SIGINT handler is never called. What causes this difference in behavior?
Exit signals received by Docker are passed to the main process, the process on PID 1. When running with npm, npm becomes the main process. This is visible by running top in the container to list running processes:
docker run --detach --name server exampleServer
docker exec -it server top
| PID | COMMAND |
| --- | --- |
| 1 | npm |
| 17 | node src/index.js |
| 23 | sh |
| 29 | top |
As it turns out, npm spawns the server as a child process, but does not pass received exit signals. By changing the last line in the dockerfile to CMD [ "node", "src/server.js" ], Node.js is called directly and thus removes npm from this process. Now repeating the test from before: running the server with docker and exiting gives the expected Closing server output, hooray!
You may have noticed we are not handling the SIGTERM signal. The SIGTERM event is a termination signal and SIGINT is an interruption signal. Both tell the process to gracefully shutdown. Difference being when they are sent. In this case SIGINT is sent when quitting from the terminal. SIGTERM is sent when stopping a container running in the background, so without listening to SIGTERM running the following will not shut down correctly:
docker run --detach --name server server
docker stop server
Listening to both exit signals fixes this:
['SIGINT', 'SIGTERM'].forEach(function(signal) {
process.on(signal, function() {
console.log('Closing server');
server.close(process.exit);
});
});
Now the server handles both exit signals, it will not drop open connections. Whether it is a manual restart or when the server exits because of scaling, with a container management service like Kubernetes. No user is stuck in an infinite loading state.