The Startstop Package

This "universal" LSB (Linux Standard Base) start/stop package streamlines authoring of application init scripts for daemon-style servers. It provides a full set of LSB actions (start/stop/restart/status/etc.), and supports running the server as a non-root user, protection against SIGHUP, reliable service restart, service monitoring with auto-restart, and logging of significant events to syslog. It was built originally for Java servers, but can be valuable for many other servers as well.

Example Usage

The logic of a full-featured init script with an extended set of actions and server monitoring for a Java-based server could be about as simple as: 

  # Set up the PATH
  export PATH=/usr/java/bin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/bin:/bin  
  # Set up the CLASSPATH
  export CLASSPATH=/home/server/classes

  # Run MyServer as user "javaserver" with service monitoring, and
  # logging of its stdout and stderr to a file.
  startstop -u javaserver -l /var/log/jsplog -m "$(basename $0)" \
    java com.my.MyServer

Documentation

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