Debian service

Here is a tutorial about running echoplexus on your computer/server as a Debian service.

Echoplexus is running on debian, using echoplexus user, and the git clone is inside /home/echoplexus/echoplexus

Your current installation should be working before configuring this service.

I've created a small start_echoplexus.sh script in /home/echoplexus, containing :

#!/bin/sh
cd $HOME/echoplexus
npm start

Don't forget to make this script executable : chmod +x /home/echoplexus/start_echoplexus.sh

Then, I've create a script in /etc/init.d/echoplexus, containing :

#!/bin/sh

### BEGIN INIT INFO
# Provides:          echoplexus
# Required-Start:    $local_fs $remote_fs $network $syslog
# Required-Stop:     $local_fs $remote_fs $network $syslog
# Default-Start:     2 3 4 5
# Default-Stop:      0 1 6
# Short-Description: starts echoplexus
# Description:       starts echoplexus using start-stop-daemon
### END INIT INFO

PATH="/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/sbin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/opt/node/bin"
LOGFILE="/var/log/echoplexus.log"
ECHOPLEXUS_BIN="/home/echoplexus/start_echoplexus.sh"
USER="echoplexus"
GROUP="echoplexus"
DESC="Echoplexus"
NAME="echoplexus"

set -e

. /lib/lsb/init-functions

start() {
  echo "Starting $DESC... "
  
        start-stop-daemon --start --chuid "$USER:$GROUP" --background --make-pidfile --pidfile /var/run/$NAME.pid --exec $ECHOPLEXUS_BIN -- $LOGFILE || true
  echo "done"
}

#We need this function to ensure the whole process tree will be killed
killtree() {
    local _pid=$1
    local _sig=${2-TERM}
    for _child in $(ps -o pid --no-headers --ppid ${_pid}); do
        killtree ${_child} ${_sig}
    done
    kill -${_sig} ${_pid}
}

stop() {
  echo "Stopping $DESC... "
   while test -d /proc/$(cat /var/run/$NAME.pid); do
    killtree $(cat /var/run/$NAME.pid) 15
    sleep 0.5
  done
  rm /var/run/$NAME.pid
  echo "done"
}

status() {
  status_of_proc -p /var/run/$NAME.pid "" "echoplexus" && exit 0 || exit $?  
}

case "$1" in
  start)
          start
          ;;
  stop)
    stop
          ;;
  restart)
          stop
          start
          ;;
  status)
          status
          ;;
  *)
          echo "Usage: $NAME {start|stop|restart|status}" >&2
          exit 1
          ;;
esac

exit 0

Then you just need to update your rc.d :

update-rc.d echoplexus defaults

Then just start echoplexus with this command :

/etc/init.d/echoplexus start

Echoplexus will be started each time your start your computer/server.