I have a node.js script which need to start at boot and run under the www-data user. During development I always started the script with:

su www-data -c 'node /var/www/php-jobs/manager.js

I saw exactly what happened, the manager.js works now great. Searching SO I found I had to place this in my /etc/rc.local. Also, I learned to point the output to a log file and to append the 2>&1 to "redirect stderr to stdout" and it should be a daemon so the last character is a &.

Finally, my /etc/rc.local looks like this:

#!/bin/sh -e
#
# rc.local
#
# This script is executed at the end of each multiuser runlevel.
# Make sure that the script will "exit 0" on success or any other
# value on error.
#
# In order to enable or disable this script just change the execution
# bits.
#
# By default this script does nothing.
su www-data -c ’node /var/www/php-jobs/manager.js >> /var/log/php-jobs.log 2>&1 &'
exit 0

If I run this myself (sudo /etc/rc.local): yes, it works! However, if I perform a reboot no node process is running, the /var/log/php-jobs.log does not exist and thus, the manager.js does not work. What is happening?

In this example of a rc.local script I use io redirection at the very first line of execution to my own log file:

#!/bin/sh -e
#
# rc.local
#
# This script is executed at the end of each multiuser runlevel.
# Make sure that the script will "exit 0" on success or any other
# value on error.
#
# In order to enable or disable this script just change the execution
# bits.
#
# By default this script does nothing.
exec 1>/tmp/rc.local.log 2>&1  # send stdout and stderr from rc.local to a log file
set -x                         # tell sh to display commands before execution
/opt/stuff/somefancy.error.script.sh
exit 0