upstart multiple parameters

Question

So Im working on a upstart process and wanted to know if I could pass in multiple parameters

my-upstart-service restart PARM1=foo PARM2=bar PARM3=hello

Here is kinda what I had in mind

description "Multi Parm"

env USER=BLARG

start on startup
stop on shutdown

respawn

instance $PARM1
instance $PARM2
instance $PARM3

env P1=${PARM1}
env P2=${PARM2}
env P3=${PARM3}

script
    exec sudo -u $USER sh -c "$P1/$P2/$P3.sh"
end script

Can I do something like this?

Answer 1

Yes, is possible define multiple env variable and than override them from command line.

For example:

  description "Multi Parm"

  env USER=BLARG

  start on startup
  stop on shutdown

  env PARM1=foo
  env PARM2=bar
  env PARM3=hello

  script
     exec sudo -u $USER sh -c "/$PARM1/$USER/PARM2/$PARM3.sh"
  end script

Than you can start your service:

  initctl start your-service PARM1=home PARM2=bin PARM3=yourScript

It is unclear for me how you would use instance stanza. If you need to start multiple instance of your job, you could change this example:

  description "Multi Parm"

  env USER=BLARG

  start on startup
  stop on shutdown

  respawn

  instance $PARM1
  script
     exec sudo -u $USER sh -c "/home/$USER/bin/$PARM1.sh"
  end script

So you can run it multiple times with different value of $PARM1:

  initctl start your-service PARM1=my-first-script
  initctl start your-service PARM1=my-second-script

Take a look at 6.15.2 Another Instance Example there is an example on how to define a worker job and how to run it multiple times as different instance from workers job.

UPDATE Here is an example tested on lubuntu 12.04.

First define simpleInstanceJob.conf a job that simply runs your script with given parameters. This is a job without start on and stop on stanza, so it is not start/stop by upstart init process.

# SimpleInstanceJob - 
#
# This service runs for ever and print number and arguments
description "Run single job instance"
instance $ENVIRONMENT/$DRIVER/$ALGORITHM
console log
respawn
script
  exec  python /home/caterina/tmp/upstart/test.py $ENVIRONMENT $DRIVER $ALGORITHM 
end script

Put it in /etc/init and test it with:

sudo start simpleInstanceJob ENVIRONMENT=foo DRIVER=bar ALGORITHM=fooBar 

Use initctl to view status job:

initctl list | grep simpleInstanceJob

this will output:

simpleInstanceJob (foo/bar/fooBar) start/running, process 3828

and test.py output will be saved in /var/log/upstart/simpleInstanceJob-foo_bar_fooBar.log

Use:

sudo stop simpleInstanceJob ENVIRONMENT=foo DRIVER=bar ALGORITHM=fooBar 

to stop/kill "foo/bar/fooBar" instance of simpleInstanceJob.

In order to runs multiple instance of simpleInstanceJob, create a launcherJobs.conf:

# laucherJobs - 
#
# This service runs three instance of simpleInstanceJob
# starts on runlevel.
description "laucherJobs"
start on runlevel [2345]

stop on runlevel [016]
console log

pre-start script

    start simpleInstanceJob ENVIRONMENT=foo DRIVER=bar ALGORITHM=fooBar
    start simpleInstanceJob ENVIRONMENT=foo1 DRIVER=bar1 ALGORITHM=fooBar1
    start simpleInstanceJob ENVIRONMENT=foo2 DRIVER=bar2 ALGORITHM=fooBar2

end script

post-stop script
    for inst in `initctl list|grep "^simpleInstanceJob "|awk '{print $2}'|tr -d ')'|tr -d '('`
    do
       environment=`echo $inst | awk -F "/" '{print $1}'`
       driver=`echo $inst | awk -F "/" '{print $2}'`        
       algorithm=`echo $inst | awk -F "/" '{print $3}'`
       stop simpleInstanceJob ENVIRONMENT=$environment DRIVER=$driver ALGORITHM=$algorithm 
    done
end script

This "master" job has no main exec or script section, it will run (without a pid) for the duration that the "slave" or children (individual "simpleInstanceJob") job instances run.

Put it in /etc/init and test it with:

sudo start laucherJobs

This will start three instance of simpleInstanceJob:

initctl list | grep Job

will output:

simpleInstanceJob (foo/bar/fooBar) start/running, process 3745
simpleInstanceJob (foo2/bar2/fooBar2) start/running, process 3749
simpleInstanceJob (foo1/bar1/fooBar1) start/running, process 3747
launcherJobs start/running

Finally to stop all process:

sudo stop laucherJobs

Hope this is helpful to solve your problem.

Answer 2

You can do this:

start on startup
stop on runlevel [016]

instance $PARM1/$PARM2/$PARM3

setuid BLARG

respawn
exec ${UPSTART_INSTANCE}.sh