Supervisor

Supervisor

If you have background tasks that must keep running no matter what — processing queued jobs, handling real-time connections, or running custom worker scripts — Supervisor is the tool that keeps them alive. When a process crashes or the server reboots, Supervisor (a process control system for Linux) automatically restarts it so you never have to babysit it manually.

Tip

Most standard WordPress sites do not need Supervisor. Reach for it when you’re running a custom application, a Laravel app with queue workers (background task processors), a WebSocket server (for real-time features like live chat), or any script that must run continuously rather than on a schedule.

Supervisor manages what are called daemons — long-running background programs that operate silently behind the scenes without a user interacting with them directly.

Installing Supervisor

Supervisor is not installed by default. When you first visit the Supervisor tab, you will see a message: “Supervisor Not Installed.”

1. Navigate to your server’s detail page and click the Supervisor tab.
2. Click the Install Supervisor button.
3. Wait for the installation to complete (usually under a minute).

Once installed, you can create and manage daemon processes.

Note

Installing Supervisor is a one-time action per server. Once installed, it remains available and starts automatically when the server reboots.

Creating a Daemon

After Supervisor is installed, add a background process like this:

1. Click Create Daemon (or Add New depending on your view).
2. Fill in the daemon details:
   • Name — a descriptive label (e.g., “Laravel Queue Worker”)
   • Command — the full shell command to run (e.g., php /home/fly/site.com/artisan queue:work)
   • Number of Processes — how many parallel instances to run simultaneously
   • Directory — the working directory from which the command runs
3. Click Save.

Supervisor starts the daemon immediately and monitors it from that point forward.

Managing Daemons

Each daemon in the list supports these actions:

Action	What It Does
Start	Starts a stopped daemon
Stop	Gracefully stops the daemon
Restart	Stops and then starts the daemon (useful after deploying new code)
Delete	Permanently removes the daemon configuration

Common Use Cases

Here are typical daemons you might configure, along with example commands:

Daemon	Command Example	Purpose
Queue worker	php artisan queue:work --tries=3	Processes background jobs in a Laravel app
WebSocket server	node /home/fly/app/websocket.js	Maintains persistent real-time connections
Custom worker	/home/fly/scripts/process-uploads.sh	Runs a custom background shell script

Before adding a daemon, verify the command works correctly when you run it manually via SSH (secure shell access to your server). A misconfigured command causes Supervisor to enter a restart loop, which can consume significant server resources.

Supervisor vs. Cron Jobs

Not sure whether to use Supervisor or a cron job (a task scheduler that runs commands at set times)? This table helps:

Feature	Supervisor	Cron Jobs
Purpose	Long-running processes that should always be active	Tasks that run at scheduled intervals
Execution	Runs continuously, restarts on crash	Runs once at the scheduled time
Best for	Queue workers, WebSocket servers	Cleanup scripts, backups, scheduled reports

Tip

If you run WordPress sites with heavy background processing — WooCommerce order handling, bulk imports, or large email sends — a Supervisor-managed queue worker can dramatically improve performance compared to relying on WP-Cron (WordPress’s built-in task scheduler, which only fires when someone visits the site) alone.

Best Practices

• Set the right number of processes — for queue workers, 1–3 processes is usually sufficient for a single server. Too many processes can exhaust your available RAM.
• Use descriptive names so you can identify at a glance what each daemon does.
• Restart daemons after deployments to ensure they pick up your latest code changes.
• Monitor resource usage on the Status tab to catch any daemons consuming excessive CPU or memory.

Related Pages

• Cron Jobs
• Managing Services
• Server Status and Health
• Server Terminal