foreman(1) -- manage Procfile-based applications

SYNOPSIS

foreman start [process]
foreman export <var>format</var> [location]

DESCRIPTION

Foreman is a manager for Procfile-based applications. Its aim is to abstract away the details of the Procfile format, and allow you to either run your application directly or export it to some other process management format.

RUNNING

foreman start is used to run your application directly from the command line.

If no additional parameters are passed, foreman will run one instance of each type of process defined in your Procfile.

If a parameter is passed, foreman will run one instance of the specified application type.

The following options control how the application is run:

-s, --screen: Run the application as a series of screen windows rather than interleaved in stdout.

EXPORTING

foreman export is used to export your application to another process management format.

An location to export can be passed as an argument. This argument may be either required or optional depending on the export format.

The following options control how the application is run:

-a, --app: Use this name rather than the application's root directory name as the name of the application when exporting.
-c, --concurrency: Specify the number of each process type to run. The value passed in should be in the format process=num,process=num
-l, --log: Specify the directory to place process logs in.
-p, --port: Specify which port to use as the base for this application. Should be a multiple of 1000.
-u, --user: Specify the user the application should be run as. Defaults to the app name

OPTIONS

These options control all modes of foreman's operation.

-f, --procfile: Specify an alternate location for the application's Procfile. This file's containing directory will be assumed to be the root directory of the application.

EXPORT FORMATS

foreman currently supports the following output formats:

inittab
upstart

INITTAB EXPORT

Will export a chunk of inittab-compatible configuration:

# ----- foreman example processes -----
EX01:4:respawn:/bin/su - example -c 'PORT=5000 bundle exec thin start >> /var/log/web-1.log 2>&1'
EX02:4:respawn:/bin/su - example -c 'PORT=5100 bundle exec rake jobs:work >> /var/log/job-1.log 2>&1'
# ----- end foreman example processes -----

UPSTART EXPORT

Will create a series of upstart scripts in the location you specify. Scripts will be structured to make the following commands valid:

start appname

stop appname-processname

restart appname-processname-3

PROCFILE

A Procfile should contain both a name for the process and the command used to run it.

web  bundle exec thin start
job  bundle exec rake jobs:work

EXAMPLES

Start one instance of each process type, interleave the output on stdout:

$ foreman start

Export the application in upstart format:

$ foreman export upstart /etc/init

Run one process type from the application defined in a specific Procfile:

$ foreman start alpha -p ~/app/Procfile