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Man Pages
FOREMAN(1) Foreman Manual FOREMAN(1)

foreman - manage Procfile-based applications

foreman start [process]
foreman run <command>
foreman export <format> [location]

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.

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:

-m, --formation
Specify the number of each process type to run. The value passed in should be in the format process=num,process=num
-e, --env
Specify one or more .env files to load
-f, --procfile
Specify an alternate Procfile to load, implies -d at the Procfile root.
-p, --port
Specify which port to use as the base for this application. Should be a multiple of 1000.
-t, --timeout
Specify the amount of time (in seconds) processes have to shutdown gracefully before receiving a SIGKILL, defaults to 5.

foreman run is used to run one-off commands using the same environment as your defined processes.

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

A 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.
-m, --formation
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.
-t, --template
Specify an alternate template to use for creating export files. See https://github.com/ddollar/foreman/tree/master/data/export for examples.
-u, --user
Specify the user the application should be run as. Defaults to the app name

These options control all modes of foreman´s operation.
-d, --root
Specify an alternate application root. This defaults to the directory containing the Procfile.
-e, --env
Specify an alternate environment file. You can specify more than one file by using: --env file1,file2.
-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.

foreman currently supports the following output formats:
  • bluepill
  • inittab
  • launchd
  • runit
  • supervisord
  • systemd
  • upstart

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 -----
    

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

systemctl start appname.target

systemctl stop appname-processname.target

systemctl restart appname-processname-3.service

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

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
    

A process name may contain letters, numbers and the underscore character. You can validate your Procfile format using the check command:

$ foreman check
    

The special environment variables $PORT and $PS are available within the Procfile. $PORT is the port selected for that process. $PS is the name of the process for the line.

The $PORT value starts as the base port as specified by -p, then increments by 100 for each new process line. Multiple instances of the same process are assigned $PORT values that increment by 1.

If a .env file exists in the current directory, the default environment will be read from it. This file should contain key/value pairs, separated by =, with one key/value pair per line.
FOO=bar
BAZ=qux
    

If a .foreman file exists in the current directory, default options will be read from it. This file should be in YAML format with the long option name as keys. Example:
formation: alpha=0,bravo=1
port: 15000
    

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 -f ~/myapp/Procfile
    

Start all processes except the one named worker:

$ foreman start -m all=1,worker=0
    

Foreman is Copyright (C) 2010 David Dollar http://daviddollar.org
April 2020 Foreman 0.87.2

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