How do I make Crashplan start automatically?

Question

New Ubuntu 16.04.1 user, and so far very happy about it.

One thing I do have a problem with, is starting Crashplan when Ubuntu boots.

It's installed. I can start it manually. How do I make it start automatically?

As I understand it, I need to add something to /etc/init.d.

But what do I need to add and how do I add it to /etc/init.d?

Hope you can help. Great experience so far, using Ubuntu as my primary desktop OS :)

Answer 1

Crashplan is a backup service. If installed correctly, it will start automatically when the computer is rebooted. You can check this status by running;

$ sudo systemctl status crashplan
● crashplan.service - LSB: CrashPlan Engine
   Loaded: loaded (/etc/init.d/crashplan; bad; vendor preset: enabled)
   Active: active (running) since Tue 2016-10-11 16:41:14 EDT; 8min ago
     Docs: man:systemd-sysv-generator(8)
  Process: 1776 ExecStart=/etc/init.d/crashplan start (code=exited, status=0/SUCCESS)
   CGroup: /system.slice/crashplan.service
           └─1995 /usr/local/crashplan/jre/bin/java -Dfile.encoding=UTF-8 -Dapp=CrashPlanService -DappBaseName=CrashPlan -Xms20m -Xmx1024m -Dsun.net.inetaddr

Oct 11 16:41:10 ubunzeus systemd[1]: Starting LSB: CrashPlan Engine...
Oct 11 16:41:14 ubunzeus crashplan[1776]: Starting CrashPlan Engine ... Using standard startup
Oct 11 16:41:14 ubunzeus crashplan[1776]: OK
Oct 11 16:41:14 ubunzeus systemd[1]: Started LSB: CrashPlan Engine.

A service can be started or stopped using these commands. The first one will start the service. The second one will stop it. The third will show a status of the service.

$ sudo systemctl start crashplan
$ sudo systemctl stop crashplan
$ sudo systemctl status crashplan

---

The GUI you bring up from the Ubuntu Dash is an interface to configure the service. The service will be running whether you visit the interface or not.

---

If it didn't have include a service startup, you could write a script to start the service with these steps:

Put that process into a script and add it to a /etc/rc.local file. This is a file that is run at bootup.

Edit your /etc/rc.local and add your startup script (example):

/etc/local/rc.local:

#!/bin/sh -e
#
# rc.local
#
# This script is executed at the end of each multiuser runlevel.
# Make sure that the script will "exit 0" on success or any other
# value on error.
#
# In order to enable or disable this script just change the execution
# bits.
#
# By default this script does nothing.

/usr/local/bin/crashplanstartupscript.sh

exit 0

Please the steps that you perform manually into /usr/local/bin/crashplanstartupscript.sh. Crashplan will automatically start every time the computer is booted without you logging in.

The text comments in the /etc/rc.local file explains how it works.

Answer 2

To augment the other answer, if you prefer a GUI approach, simply type Startup in the Dash and click on the Startup Applications icon. This window will appear. (Contents of window will vary from system to system).

Click the Add button, enter a descriptive name and the command into the appropriate boxes. Add a comment if you wish. Then click the add button. The new startup command will appear in the list.

Some applications require a delay before starting, such as ones that depend on the desktop, such as Conky. If your application is one of these, you can add a delay in seconds by adding -p 20 (for a 20 second delay) after your command. Change the number for the delay value you need.

Answer 3

With Ubuntu 19.10, CrashPlan creates its own startup script but fails to activate it automatically at each start.

ls /etc/rc*/*crashplan 
/etc/rc.d/S99crashplan

You can see the script exists but is not present in any of the /etc/rcN.d folders.

If that's the case you can use systemctl to create the symbolic links needed:

sudo systemctl enable crashplan

After which you will see:

ls /etc/rc*/*crashplan 
/etc/rc0.d/K01crashplan  /etc/rc3.d/S01crashplan  /etc/rc6.d/K01crashplan
/etc/rc1.d/K01crashplan  /etc/rc4.d/S01crashplan  /etc/rc.d/S99crashplan
/etc/rc2.d/S01crashplan  /etc/rc5.d/S01crashplan

Now CrashPlan will be started automatically each time Ubuntu boots. You still need to start it manually for now.

sudo systemctl start crashplan