Running services as non root user

Question

I am running some services (apache,mongo,memcached) as a non privileged user. What is the best way to ensure they start automatically if the machine reboots or they crash?

Answer 1

The way i solved this way back when, was by having a script that ran every minute from cron. This script then checked to make sure everything i wanted to run was in fact running, and started it if it wasn't.

I probably wouldn't consider this "the best way", but it worked.

Answer 2

The other possible option will be to use monit or mon tools. They are able to monitor running services and restart them.