Plesk extension for managing PM2-powered Node.js applications with process control, monitoring, deployment automation, and seamless server integration.
Manage Node.js applications with PM2 from Plesk, with admin, reseller, and customer scoped access.
Overview
Node Manager (PM2) is a Plesk extension for managing Node.js applications with PM2 without SSH.
It is built for hosting panels where admins need a clean process manager for SSR apps, API servers, queues, websocket servers, and other long-running Node.js services while keeping customers scoped to their own subscriptions.
The page is maintained in docs/index.html and uses the screenshots stored in docs/screenshots. It covers installation, access control, process management, runtime setup, file editing, logs, deployment, ecosystem config, metrics, backups, settings, and troubleshooting.
PM2 process list with start, stop, restart, reload, delete, and scaling controls.
Domain-scoped dashboard for admin, reseller, and customer users.
Runtime detection for Node.js, npm, PM2, Git, and PM2 home.
Admin PM2 install/update action for detected Plesk Node.js runtimes.
Live stdout/stderr log viewer with download and clear actions.
Environment variable manager with secret storage support.
Git deployment actions with optional npm install and zero-downtime reload.
PM2 ecosystem config editor.
CPU and memory metrics history with graph and pagination.
Backup and restore for extension-managed PM2 metadata.
Plesk service-plan permissions and process limits.
Complete Option Reference
The extension is domain scoped. All relative paths are resolved from the selected domain application root, and customer/reseller actions depend on Plesk service-plan permissions.
Top Actions
Info: Opens the extension information page with version, runtime, storage, permissions, and operational paths.
Refresh: Reloads domains, process state, runtime status, metrics, and visible tab data.
New Process: Opens the create-process page for the selected domain.
Domain Context
Domain: Selects the domain or subdomain workspace.
Subscription user: Shows the system user that owns the selected domain.
Application root: Shows the absolute document/application root used for relative process paths.
Permissions: Shows the current user's effective Node Manager permission level.
Processes Tab
Process row: Opens the process detail drawer.
Start: Starts a stopped PM2 process.
Stop: Stops a running process.
Restart: Restarts the process with PM2.
Reload: Performs a PM2 reload where supported.
Scale: Updates the process instance count.
Delete: Removes the PM2 process and extension metadata after confirmation.
Create Process Page
Name: PM2 application name.
Script path: JavaScript entry file. Browse opens the domain-scoped file picker, and selecting a file fills this field.
Working directory: Process working directory. Browse opens directories inside the selected domain root.
Environment: PM2 environment name, such as production.
Instances: Number of PM2 instances to run.
Max restarts: Optional restart limit passed to PM2.
Restart delay, ms: Optional delay before PM2 restarts the process.
Git branch: Deployment branch used by the Deploy tab.
Autorestart if the process exits: Enables or disables PM2 autorestart.
Create and Start: Creates the config and starts the process.
File Picker And Editor
Document root: Returns to the selected domain root.
Up: Moves one directory up, but never outside the selected domain root.
Open: Opens a directory inside the picker.
Select: Selects a file or directory for the active form field.
Edit: Opens editable files in a Plesk drawer with the CodeEditor component.
Save: Writes the edited file content.
Close: Closes the drawer, with confirmation when changes are unsaved.
Runtime Tab
Use detected paths: Applies detected Node.js, npm, PM2, Git, and PM2 home values to settings.
Install or update PM2: Installs or updates PM2 using the detected runtime. The button is disabled while the action is running.
Runtime table: Shows Node.js, npm, PM2, and Git status, detected version, and resolved path.
PM2 home: Shows the PM2 home directory used for managed processes.
Settings Tab
Node binary path: Absolute path to node.
npm binary path: Absolute path to npm.
PM2 binary path: Absolute path to pm2.
Git binary path: Absolute path to git.
PM2 home: Directory used by PM2 for process state.
Extra PATH: Additional PATH entries for PM2 commands.
Polling interval: Process and metrics refresh interval.
Max log bytes: Maximum bytes read from stdout/stderr in the log drawer.
Metrics retention days: How long sampled CPU and memory metrics are kept.
Deployment timeout: Maximum deployment command runtime.
Save Settings: Persists settings for the extension.
Backups Tab
Create Backup: Exports extension-managed metadata and settings.
Restore: Imports a previous backup.
Delete: Removes a backup archive.
Backup list: Shows backup name, creation time, size, and available actions.
Process Detail Drawer
Logs: View stdout or stderr, refresh, clear by truncating the log file, and download logs.
Env: Add, edit, save, mark secret, or delete environment variables.
Deploy: Pull from Git, optionally run npm install, choose production dependencies, and reload after deployment.
Ecosystem: Edit the PM2 ecosystem configuration, save it, or save and start the process.
Metrics: View CPU and memory chart data plus the latest five metric samples by default.
Requirements
Plesk Obsidian 18.0.34 or newer on Linux.
Physical hosting enabled for domains that will run Node.js apps.
Plesk Node.js extension or another Node.js/npm runtime available on the server.
SQLite PDO extension available to the Plesk PHP runtime.
Git installed for deployment features.
PM2 installed globally or installed from the extension runtime page by an administrator.
Installation
Install the latest runner-built package directly from GitHub:
plesk bin extension --install-url https://github.com/ghostcompiler/node-manager-pm2/releases/download/latest/node-manager-pm2.zip
This URL points to the rolling latest release asset. The Package Latest workflow rebuilds node-manager-pm2.zip from the current main branch on every push and whenever it is started manually, so the install command stays stable and does not depend on a hardcoded version number.
Pinned version installs are also available after publishing a versioned release:
plesk bin extension --install-url https://github.com/ghostcompiler/node-manager-pm2/releases/download/v1.0.0/node-manager-pm2-1.0.0.zip
Build the extension ZIP locally:
./packaging/build.sh
Install the locally built archive through Plesk CLI:
plesk bin extension --install node-manager-pm2-1.0.0.zip
Or install through Plesk UI:
Open Plesk Admin.
Go to Extensions.
Click Upload Extension.
Upload node-manager-pm2-1.0.0.zip.
Open Node Manager (PM2) from the Plesk sidebar or a domain page.
Testing
Run the same local checks used by the CI runner:
npm ci --ignore-scripts --legacy-peer-deps
npm run build
find plib htdocs -type f \( -name '*.php' -o -name '*.phtml'\) -print0 | xargs -0 -n1 php -l
xmllint --noout meta.xml
node -e "JSON.parse(require('fs').readFileSync('packaging/manifest.json', 'utf8'))"
sh -n packaging/build.sh
sh -n sbin/pm2-helper
./packaging/build.sh
zip -T node-manager-pm2-1.0.0.zip
GitHub Actions runners are included:
CI runs on every branch push, pull request, and manual dispatch. It validates PHP, JavaScript, documentation screenshots, metadata, shell scripts, builds the extension, tests the ZIP, and uploads package artifacts.
Package Latest runs on main and manual dispatch. It builds and publishes the stable node-manager-pm2.zip asset to the rolling latest GitHub release.
Release runs on v<version> tags and manual dispatch. It verifies the tag matches meta.xml, builds node-manager-pm2-<version>.zip, and publishes the versioned release.
Pages runs when documentation changes on main and manual dispatch. It validates docs/index.html screenshot references and deploys the docs/ folder to GitHub Pages.
First Run
Open the affected service plan or subscription.
Enable Node Manager (PM2) access.
Enable the needed action permissions: control, logs, and manage.
Set Maximum PM2 applications to a non-zero value for subscriptions that can create processes.
Sync existing subscriptions if Plesk marks them as customized or out of sync.
Open Node Manager (PM2) as admin, reseller, or customer.
Review the Runtime tab and install PM2 if needed.
Example SSR Process
For a subdomain such as assets.example.com where the app root is:
/var/www/vhosts/example.com/assets.example.com
Use:
Name: assets-ssr
Script path: server.js
Working directory: .
Environment: production
Instances: 1
Autorestart: enabled
The extension resolves relative paths from the selected domain application root, so server.js becomes:
