Run as Service/Daemon

After Bots installation nothing is runnng in the background (service in windows or daemon in linux/unix). Bots has several parts that you may want to run as services/daemons:

  • bots-webserver.py
  • bots-jobqueueserver.py (if you use this)
  • bots-dirmonitor.py (if you use this)

Note

bots-engine is scheduled, it is not a daemon/service.

Windows Services

2 ways to use bots as a service (after Python and bots are installed):

  1. Official way, using sc.exe or srvany.exe. It’s the Microsoft way. (I never use this myself).
  2. Much simpler is to use NSSM

Note

I mostly use the Task Scheduler, option ‘begin the task’ set to value ‘at start-up’. Simple, works fine for me.

Linux Daemons

Note

I mostly use cron to start up at boot (@reboot). Simple, works fine for me.

Below are some examples that run bots-webserver or jobqueserver as a daemon:

Example 1 systemd

(google it, quite simple)

Example 2 SysV init using start-stop-daemon

#! /bin/sh
#
# uses 'start-stop-daemon' , which is used in debian/ubuntu
#
NAME=bots-webserver
PIDFILE="/var/run/$NAME.pid"
DAEMON="/usr/local/bin/bots-webserver.py"
DAEMON_ARGS="-cconfig"

case "$1" in
    start)
        echo "Starting "$NAME" "
        start-stop-daemon --start --verbose --background --pidfile $PIDFILE --make-pidfile --startas $DAEMON -- $DAEMON_ARGS
        ;;
    stop)
        echo "Stopping "$NAME" "
        start-stop-daemon --stop --verbose --pidfile $PIDFILE
        rm -f $PIDFILE
        ;;
    restart)
        echo "Restarting "$NAME" "
        start-stop-daemon --stop --verbose --pidfile $PIDFILE
        rm -f $PIDFILE
        sleep 1
        start-stop-daemon --start --verbose --background --pidfile $PIDFILE --make-pidfile --startas $DAEMON -- $DAEMON_ARGS
        ;;
    \*)
        echo "Usage: ""$(basename "$0")"" {start|stop|restart}"
        echo "    Starts the bots webserver as a daemon."
        echo "    Bots-webserver is part of bots open source edi translator (http://bots.sourceforge.net)."
        exit 1
        ;;
esac

exit 0

Example 2 SysV init

### BEGIN INIT INFO
# Provides:          bots-webserver
# Required-Start:    $remote_fs $network
# Required-Stop:     $remote_fs $network
# Default-Start:     2 3 4 5
# Default-Stop:      0 1 6
# Short-Description: BOTS webserver daemon
# Description:       BOTS webserver daemon
### END INIT INFO

# Using the lsb functions to perform the operations.
. /lib/lsb/init-functions
# Process name ( For display )
NAME=bots-webserver
# Daemon name, where is the actual executable
DAEMON=/usr/bin/bots-webserver.py
# pid file for the daemon
PIDFILE=/var/run/bots-webserver.pid
# Arguments for the daemon
ARGS="> /dev/null 2>&1 &"

# If the daemon is not there, then exit.
test -x $DAEMON || exit 5

case $1 in
 start)
  # Checked the PID file exists and check the actual status of process
  if [ -e $PIDFILE ]; then
   pidofproc -p $PIDFILE $DAEMON && status="0" || status="$?"
   # If the status is SUCCESS then don't need to start again.
   if [ $status = "0" ]; then
    log_success_msg "$NAME process is already running"
    exit # Exit
   fi
  fi
  # Start the daemon.
  # Start the daemon with the help of start-stop-daemon
  # Log the message appropriately
  if start_daemon -p $PIDFILE $DAEMON $ARGS; then
   # For older LSB functions that don't handle -p argument correctly (i.e. CentOS)
   if [ ! -e $PIDFILE ]; then
    pidofproc $DAEMON > $PIDFILE
   fi
   log_success_msg "Starting the process $NAME"
  else
   log_failure_msg "Failed to start the process $NAME"
  fi
  ;;
 stop)
  # Stop the daemon.
  if [ -e $PIDFILE ]; then
   pidofproc -p $PIDFILE $DAEMON > /dev/null && status="0" || status="$?"
   if [ "$status" = 0 ]; then
    killproc -p $PIDFILE $DAEMON
    /bin/rm -f $PIDFILE
    log_success_msg "Stoppping the $NAME process"
   fi
  else
   log_warning_msg "$NAME process is not running"
  fi
  ;;
 restart)
  # Restart the daemon.
  $0 stop && sleep 2 && $0 start
  ;;
 status)
  # Check the status of the process.
  if [ -e $PIDFILE ]; then
   pidofproc -p $PIDFILE $DAEMON > /dev/null && log_success_msg "$NAME process is running" && exit 0 || exit $?
  else
   log_warning_msg "$NAME process is not running"
  fi
  ;;
 reload)
  # Reload the process. Basically sending some signal to a daemon to reload
  # it configurations.
  if [ -e $PIDFILE ]; then
   killproc -p $PIDFILE $DAEMON -signal USR1
   log_success_msg "$NAME process reloaded successfully"
  else
   log_failure_msg "$PIDFILE does not exists"
  fi
  ;;
 \*)
  # For invalid arguments, print the usage message.
  echo "Usage: $0 {start|stop|restart|reload|status}"
  exit 2
  ;;
esac

Example 4 upstart (Ubuntu)

description "bots web server"
author "bots@yourmail.com"

start on runlevel [2345]
stop on runlevel [!2345]

respawn

exec bots-webserver.py