Debugging node servers with node-inspector

Install node inspector

$ npm install -g node-inspector

Run node in debug mode

$ node --debug your/node/program.js

Send USR1 signal to node

$ pkill -USR1 node

Launch node-inspector in background mode

$ node-inspector &

Open up the debugger in your browser by navigating to http://localhost:8080/debug?port=5858

If you have something like livereload restarting your node server when you change a source file, then re-launching node-inspector can be done with something like this:

$ PID=`ps -ef | grep node-inspector | grep -v grep | awk '{print $2}'`; if [[ $PID -ne '' ]]; then echo "Killing node-inspector (pid $PID)"; kill $PID; wait $PID; fi; echo "Sending USR1 signal to node"; pkill -USR1 node; echo "Launching node-inspector"; node-inspector&

Node inspector GitHub page: https://github.com/node-inspector/node-inspector