Custom daemon script: works, but does not run at boot / startup

Question

this is Ubuntu 10.10 Maverick.

I have the following shell script in init.d that I want to run as a "daemon" (background service with start/stop/restart really) at system startup. There is a symlink in rc3.d. I tried 4 and 5 too. (Ideally this would initialize before graphical login happens and before a user logs in.)

IMPORTANT: the script works 100% as expected and required when testing this with service MetaLeapDaemon start and service MetaLeapDaemon stop. (This shell script calls a Python program which makes sure the appropriate .pid files are both created at startup and deleted at exit.)

So generally it works fine but now my only issue is why it will not be run at any of the run-levels I tried. I know for sure it isn't run because the log file it normally creates does not get created.

As you can see (by the lack of any uid:gid args in the start-stop-daemon commands) this would currently run only under root, is this forbidden in a default setup?

Here's the script, pretty much your run-off-the-mill daemon script really:

#! /bin/sh

DAEMON=/opt/metaleap/_core/daemon/MetaLeapDaemon.py
NAME=MetaLeapDaemon
DESC="MetaLeapDaemon"

test -f $DAEMON || exit 0

set -e

case "$1" in
    start)
        start-stop-daemon --start --pidfile /var/run/$NAME.pid --exec $DAEMON
        ;;
    stop)
        start-stop-daemon --stop --pidfile /var/run/$NAME.pid
        ;;
    restart)
        start-stop-daemon --stop --pidfile /var/run/$NAME.pid
        sleep 1
        start-stop-daemon --start --pidfile /var/run/$NAME.pid --exec $DAEMON
        ;;
    *)
        N=/etc/init.d/$NAME
        echo "Usage: $N {start|stop|restart}" >&2
        exit 1
        ;;
esac

exit 0

Answer 1

I'm answering this for completeness, even though you already went with an Upstart job (and that is the way to go, I'm not suggesting here you go back)....

I think the key thing you missed first time around was the runlevel. I'm going to guess you are used to RPM distro's where it's typically runlevel 3 for multiuser and runlevel 5 for GUI?

In Debian and Ubuntu, there's really only single user (1) and multiuser (with GUI if installed). And multi user is runlevel 2. So your symlinks failed because you never got to RL 3.

Using the update-rc.d command makes managing the symlinks easier.

In any case, I'm writing this up for anyone else you might actually need it. Though I would suggest they convert the script to an Upstart too!

Answer 2

Use the following command to start your script at startup.

Add it to the startup applications.

sudo -u USERNAME COMMAND

By the way, someone told me to use NOPASSWORD, else it won't work:

You'd better run sudo visudo to edit the /etc/sudoers file and add a NOPASSWD for the command instead of writing the password in the script. – Lekensteyn

I hope this helped you,

Daniel