how to write upstart script for a background service (db)

Question

I am on ubuntu 14.04 server and I am trying to write script for my database. i added this file to /etc/init/neo.conf:

description "neo4j upstart"

start on startup
stop on shutdown

script
  echo $$ > /var/run/neo_start.pid
  exec /home/ubuntu/neo/neo4j-enterprise-2.3.1/bin/neo4j start
end script

pre-start script
  echo "[`date`] Neo4j Starting" >> /var/log/neo.log
end script

pre-stop script
  rm /var/run/neo_start.pid
  echo "[`date`] Neo4j Stopping" >> /var/log/neo.log
end script

sudo service neo start works fine but sudo service neo stop tells me: 'stop: Unknown instance:'.

any ideas? maybe something with the pid?

Answer 1

Looks like bin/neo4j start creates it's own daemon process that upstart loses sight of. If you use bin/neo4j console upstart will be able to keep track of it like a normal process.