NSSM: The Non-Sucking Service Manager

Version 2.4, 2010-09-23



NSSM is a service helper program similar to srvany and cygrunsrv.  It can 

start any application as an NT service and will restart the service if it 

fails for any reason.



NSSM also has a graphical service installer and remover.



Full documentation can be found online at



                           http://iain.cx/src/nssm/



Since version 2.0, the GUI can be bypassed by entering all appropriate 

options on the command line.



Since version 2.1, NSSM can be compiled for x64 platforms.

Thanks Benjamin Mayrargue.



Since version 2.2, NSSM can be configured to take different actions

based on the exit code of the managed application.



Since version 2.3, NSSM logs to the Windows event log more elegantly.





Usage

-----

In the usage notes below, arguments to the program may be written in angle 

brackets and/or square brackets.  <string> means you must insert the 

appropriate string and [<string>] means the string is optional.  See the 

examples below...





Installation using the GUI

--------------------------

To install a service, run



    nssm install <servicename>



You will be prompted to enter the full path to the application you wish 

to run and any command line options to pass to that application.



Use the system service manager (services.msc) to control advanced service 

properties such as startup method and desktop interaction.  NSSM may 

support these options at a later time...





Installation using the command line

-----------------------------------

To install a service, run



    nssm install <servicename> <application> [<options>]



NSSM will then attempt to install a service which runs the named application 

with the given options (if you specified any).



Don't forget to enclose paths in "quotes" if they contain spaces!





Managing the service

--------------------

NSSM will launch the application listed in the registry when you send it a 

start signal and will terminate it when you send a stop signal.  So far, so 

much like srvany.  But NSSM is the Non-Sucking service manager and can take 

action if/when the application dies.



With no configuration from you, NSSM will try to restart itself if it notices

that the application died but you didn't send it a stop signal.  NSSM will

keep trying, pausing 30 seconds between each attempt, until the service is

successfully started or you send it a stop signal.



NSSM will look in the registry under

HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\<service>\Parameters\AppExit for

string (REG_SZ) values corresponding to the exit code of the application.

If the application exited with code 1, for instance, NSSM will look for a

string value under AppExit called "1" or, if it does not find it, will

fall back to the AppExit (Default) value.  You can find out the exit code

for the application by consulting the system event log.  NSSM will log the

exit code when the application exits.



Based on the data found in the registry, NSSM will take one of three actions:



If the value data is "Restart" NSSM will try to restart the application as

described above.  This is its default behaviour.



If the value data is "Ignore" NSSM will not try to restart the application

but will continue running itself.  This emulates the (usually undesirable)

behaviour of srvany.  The Windows Services console would show the service

as still running even though the application has exited.



If the value data is "Exit" NSSM will exit gracefully.  The Windows Services

console would show the service as stopped.  If you wish to provide

finer-grained control over service recovery you should use this code and

edit the failure action manually.  Please note that Windows versions prior

to Vista will not consider such an exit to be a failure.  On older versions

of Windows you should use "Suicide" instead.



If the value data is "Suicide" NSSM will simulate a crash and exit without

informing the service manager.  This option should only be used for

pre-Vista systems where you wish to apply a service recovery action.





Removing services using the GUI

-------------------------------

NSSM can also remove services.  Run



    nssm remove <servicename>



to remove a service.  You will prompted for confirmation before the service 

is removed.  Try not to remove essential system services...





Removing service using the command line

---------------------------------------

To remove a service without confirmation from the GUI, run



    nssm remove <servicename> confirm



Try not to remove essential system services...





Logging

-------

NSSM logs to the Windows event log.  It registers itself as an event log source

and uses unique event IDs for each type of message it logs.  New versions may

add event types but existing event IDs will never be changed.



Because of the way NSSM registers itself you should be aware that you may not

be able to replace the NSSM binary if you have the event viewer open and that

running multiple instances of NSSM from different locations may be confusing if

they are not all the same version.





Example usage

-------------

To install an Unreal Tournament server:



    nssm install UT2004 c:\games\ut2004\system\ucc.exe server



To remove the server:



    nssm remove UT2004 confirm





Building NSSM from source

-------------------------

NSSM is known to compile with Visual Studio 6, Visual Studio 2005 and Visual

Studio 2008.





Credits

-------

Thanks to Bernard Loh for finding a bug with service recovery.

Thanks to Benjamin Mayrargue (www.softlion.com) for adding 64-bit support.

Thanks to Joel Reingold for spotting a command line truncation bug.



Licence

-------

NSSM is public domain.  You may unconditionally use it and/or its source code 

for any purpose you wish.