Monit runs as a regular user, no need for root!

Monit is sufficiently flexible that you don't even need PIDFILES, you can just reference the program by a regex expression!

Get the binaries here:
https://mmonit.com/monit/#download

You need a .monitrc file on the user you'll run the process.

# launches monit on default port 2812
# only allows connections form localhost
set httpd port 2812 use address 127.0.0.1
allow 127.0.0.1/127.0.0.1
allow admin:monit

# checks process banbylog
CHECK PROCESS banbylog MATCHING "java.*banbylog" start program = "/frankie/_banbylog.sh"
~/.monitrc configure file example

The real magic happens on the line that references the process banbylog, which you'll have to adjust to your own needs.

It basically matches a java program that has a multitude of chars and then the string banbylog. You can search for your own processes using something like ps -ef | grep java.

The last part of the string, start program instructs monit on how to start your process/service. In this case we're referencing /frankie/_banbylog.sh which is just a simple bash script:

#!/bin/bash
java -cp /frankie/banbylog/BanByLog-1.0.jar \ 
com.wasteofserver.banbylog.StartLooking >> \
/frankie/banbylog/banbylog.log 2>&1 &

And here are some useful commands you'll probably want to try:

monit -t - test if config file syntax is correct

monit -d 10 - launch monit as a daemon, checking processes every 10 seconds

monit status - will present you with something like this:

frankie@wasteofserver:~# monit status
Monit 5.32.0 uptime: 17m

Process 'banbylog'
  status                       OK
  monitoring status            Monitored
  monitoring mode              active
  on reboot                    start
  pid                          9610
  parent pid                   1
  uid                          0
  effective uid                0
  gid                          0
  uptime                       1d 14h 6m
  threads                      20
  children                     0
  cpu                          0.1%
  cpu total                    0.1%
  memory                       2.2% [87.2 MB]
  memory total                 2.2% [87.2 MB]
(...)

That's pretty much it. There is much more to monit, but this should allow you to start playing with it.