Open Peer Power Open Peer Power
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Autostart using systemd

Newer Linux distributions are trending towards using systemd for managing daemons. Typically, systems based on Fedora, ArchLinux, or Debian (8 or later) use systemd. This includes Ubuntu releases including and after 15.04, CentOS, and Red Hat. If you are unsure if your system is using systemd, you may check with the following command:

$ ps -p 1 -o comm=

If the preceding command returns the string systemd, continue with the instructions below.

A service file is needed to control Open Peer Power with systemd. The template below should be created using a text editor. Note, root permissions via sudo will likely be needed. The following should be noted to modify the template:

  • ExecStart contains the path to opp and this may vary. Check with whereis opp for the location.
  • For most systems, the file is /etc/systemd/system/open-peer-power@YOUR_USER.service with YOUR_USER replaced by the user account that Open Peer Power will run as (normally openpeerpower). In particular, this is the case for Ubuntu 16.04.
  • If unfamiliar with command-line text editors, sudo nano -w [filename] can be used with [filename] replaced with the full path to the file. Ex. sudo nano -w /etc/systemd/system/open-peer-power@YOUR_USER.service. After text entered, press CTRL-X then press Y to save and exit.
  • If you’re running Open Peer Power in a Python virtual environment or a Docker container, please skip to the appropriate template listed below.
[Unit]
Description= Open Peer Power
After=network-online.target

[Service]
Type=simple
User=%i
ExecStart=/usr/bin/opp

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

Python virtual environment

If you’ve setup Open Peer Power in virtualenv following our Python installation guide or manual installation guide for Raspberry Pi, the following template should work for you. If Open Peer Power install is not located at /srv/openpeerpower, please modify the ExecStart= line appropriately. YOUR_USER should be replaced by the user account that Open Peer Power will run as (e.g openpeerpower).

[Unit]
Description= Open Peer Power
After=network-online.target

[Service]
Type=simple
User=%i
ExecStart=/srv/openpeerpower/bin/opp -c "/home/%i/.openpeerpower"

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

Docker

If you want to use Docker, the following template should work for you.

[Unit]
Description= Open Peer Power
Requires=docker.service
After=docker.service

[Service]
Restart=always
RestartSec=3
ExecStart=/usr/bin/docker run --name=open-peer-power-%i -v /home/%i/.openpeerpower/:/config -v /etc/localtime:/etc/localtime:ro --net=host openpeerpower/open-peer-power
ExecStop=/usr/bin/docker stop -t 2 open-peer-power-%i
ExecStopPost=/usr/bin/docker rm -f open-peer-power-%i

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

Next Steps

You need to reload systemd to make the daemon aware of the new configuration.

sudo systemctl --system daemon-reload

To have Open Peer Power start automatically at boot, enable the service.

sudo systemctl enable open-peer-power@YOUR_USER

To disable the automatic start, use this command.

sudo systemctl disable open-peer-power@YOUR_USER

To start Open Peer Power now, use this command.

sudo systemctl start open-peer-power@YOUR_USER

You can also substitute the start above with stop to stop Open Peer Power, restart to restart Open Peer Power, and ‘status’ to see a brief status report as seen below.

$ sudo systemctl status open-peer-power@YOUR_USER
● open-peer-power@fab.service - Open Peer Power for YOUR_USER
   Loaded: loaded (/etc/systemd/system/open-peer-power@YOUR_USER.service; enabled; vendor preset: disabled)
   Active: active (running) since Sat 2016-03-26 12:26:06 CET; 13min ago
 Main PID: 30422 (opp)
   CGroup: /system.slice/system-home\x2dassistant.slice/open-peer-power@YOUR_USER.service
           ├─30422 /usr/bin/python3 /usr/bin/opp
           └─30426 /usr/bin/python3 /usr/bin/opp
[...]

To get Open Peer Power’s logging output, simple use journalctl.

sudo journalctl -f -u open-peer-power@YOUR_USER

Because the log can scroll quite quickly, you can select to view only the error lines:

sudo journalctl -f -u open-peer-power@YOUR_USER | grep -i 'error'

When working on Open Peer Power, you can easily restart the system and then watch the log output by combining the above commands using &&

sudo systemctl restart open-peer-power@YOUR_USER && sudo journalctl -f -u open-peer-power@YOUR_USER

Automatically restarting Open Peer Power on failure

If you want to restart the Open Peer Power service automatically after a crash, add the following lines to the [Service] section of your unit file:

Restart=on-failure
RestartSec=5s