[ale] Starting a service

[Joseph A Knapka]

Kevin O'Neill Stoll wrote:
> 
> What would be the most professional way to start a service on boot-up?

<Slack-centric reply>

Either invoke it directly from /etc/rc.d/rc.local, or else write a
script to start your service and invoke that script from rc.local.
The answer to this question will always be of the form "add commands to
a startup script", but different distros organize their startup
scripts differently, so my answer will not help you much if
you're on a RedHat or Deb distro.

</Slack-centric>

Normally you want to (a) test that the service you're trying
to invoke actually exists (including, for example, verifying
the existence of any required configuration files), and
(b) start it. So:

echo "Starting local services..."
if [ -f /etc/my_service.cfg && -f /usr/bin/my_service ] ; then
  /usr/bin/my_service &
  echo "Started my_service"
fi

HTH,

-- Joe
  Using open-source software: free.
  Pissing Bill Gates off: priceless.

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