Rants

In the previous post I described how to install OpenHAB on the Raspberry PI. Today I’ll show how to make openHAB start automatically when the PI boots.

First we need to add a file for the script that will be used to controlling openHAB. We’ll do that using nano text editor:

sudo /etc/init.d/openhab

This will create a new file called openhab and open the empty file in nano.

Copy and paste the following script into the file in nano:

#! /bin/sh
### BEGIN INIT INFO
# Provides: openhab
# Required-Start: $remote_fs $syslog
# Required-Stop: $remote_fs $syslog
# Default-Start: 2 3 4 5
# Default-Stop: 0 1 6
# Short-Description: OpenHAB Daemon
### END INIT INFO

# Author: Thomas Brettinger
# Do NOT "set -e"
# PATH should only include /usr/* if it runs after the mountnfs.sh script
PATH=/sbin:/usr/sbin:/bin:/usr/bin

DESC="Open Home Automation Bus Daemon"
NAME=openhab
DAEMON=/usr/bin/java
PIDFILE=/var/run/$NAME.pid
SCRIPTNAME=/etc/init.d/$NAME
ECLIPSEHOME="/opt/openhab";
HTTPPORT=8080
HTTPSPORT=8443
TELNETPORT=5555
# be sure you are adopting the user to your local OH user
RUN_AS=<your_user_here>

# get path to equinox jar inside $eclipsehome folder
cp=$(find $ECLIPSEHOME/server -name "org.eclipse.equinox.launcher_*.jar" | sort | tail -1);

DAEMON_ARGS="-Dosgi.clean=true -Declipse.ignoreApp=true -Dosgi.noShutdown=true -Djetty.port=$HTTPPORT -Djetty.port.ssl=$HTTPSPORT -Djetty.home=$ECLIPSEHOME -Dlogback.configurationFile=$ECLIPSEHOME/configurations/logback.xml -Dfelix.fileinstall.dir=$ECLIPSEHOME/addons -Djava.library.path=$ECLIPSEHOME/lib -Djava.security.auth.login.config=$ECLIPSEHOME/etc/login.conf -Dorg.quartz.properties=$ECLIPSEHOME/etc/quartz.properties -Djava.awt.headless=true -jar $cp -console ${TELNETPORT}"

# Exit if the package is not installed
[ -x "$DAEMON" ] || exit 0

# Read configuration variable file if it is present
[ -r /etc/default/$NAME ] && . /etc/default/$NAME

# Load the VERBOSE setting and other rcS variables
. /lib/init/vars.sh

# Define LSB log_* functions.
# Depend on lsb-base (>= 3.2-14) to ensure that this file is present and status_of_proc is working.
. /lib/lsb/init-functions

#
# Function that starts the daemon/service
#
do_start()
{
# Return
# 0 if daemon has been started
# 1 if daemon was already running
# 2 if daemon could not be started
start-stop-daemon --start --quiet --make-pidfile --pidfile $PIDFILE --chuid $RUN_AS --chdir $ECLIPSEHOME --exec $DAEMON --test > /dev/null \
|| return 1
start-stop-daemon --start --quiet --background --make-pidfile --pidfile $PIDFILE --chuid $RUN_AS --chdir $ECLIPSEHOME --exec $DAEMON -- $DAEMON_ARGS \
|| return 2
# Add code here, if necessary, that waits for the process to be ready
# to handle requests from services started subsequently which depend
# on this one. As a last resort, sleep for some time.
return 0
}

#
# Function that stops the daemon/service
#
do_stop()
{
# Return
# 0 if daemon has been stopped
# 1 if daemon was already stopped
# 2 if daemon could not be stopped
# other if a failure occurred
start-stop-daemon --stop --quiet --retry=TERM/30/KILL/5 --pidfile $PIDFILE --name $NAME
RETVAL="$?"
[ "$RETVAL" = 2 ] && return 2
# Wait for children to finish too if this is a daemon that forks
# and if the daemon is only ever run from this initscript.
# If the above conditions are not satisfied then add some other code
# that waits for the process to drop all resources that could be
# needed by services started subsequently. A last resort is to
# sleep for some time.
start-stop-daemon --stop --quiet --oknodo --retry=0/30/KILL/5 --exec $DAEMON
[ "$?" = 2 ] && return 2
# Many daemons don't delete their pidfiles when they exit.
rm -f $PIDFILE
return "$RETVAL"
}

#
# Function that sends a SIGHUP to the daemon/service
#
do_reload() {
#
# If the daemon can reload its configuration without
# restarting (for example, when it is sent a SIGHUP),
# then implement that here.
#
do_stop
sleep 1
do_start
return 0
}

case "$1" in
start)
log_daemon_msg "Starting $DESC"
do_start
case "$?" in
0|1) log_end_msg 0 ;;
2) log_end_msg 1 ;;
esac
;;
stop)
log_daemon_msg "Stopping $DESC"
do_stop
case "$?" in
0|1) log_end_msg 0 ;;
2) log_end_msg 1 ;;
esac
;;
status)
status_of_proc "$DAEMON" "$NAME" && exit 0 || exit $?
;;
#reload|force-reload)
#
# If do_reload() is not implemented then leave this commented out
# and leave 'force-reload' as an alias for 'restart'.
#
#log_daemon_msg "Reloading $DESC" "$NAME"
#do_reload
#log_end_msg $?
#;;
restart|force-reload)
#
# If the "reload" option is implemented then remove the
# 'force-reload' alias
#
log_daemon_msg "Restarting $DESC"
do_stop
case "$?" in
0|1)
do_start
case "$?" in
0) log_end_msg 0 ;;
1) log_end_msg 1 ;; # Old process is still running
*) log_end_msg 1 ;; # Failed to start
esac
;;
*)
# Failed to stop
log_end_msg 1
;;
esac
;;
*)
echo "Usage: $SCRIPTNAME {start|stop|status|restart|force-reload}" >&2
exit 3
;;
esac
:

You should change the value of RUN_AS to the name of your user, then save the file and exit nano.

I know, it’s a lot of text in there. I have also stolen it from the OpenHAB repository on github 🙂

We also have to make that file executable. You’ll do that by chmod:

sudo chmod a+x /etc/init.d/openhab

Last, but not least, you have to register it to run as a daemon:

sudo rc-update add openhab defaults

Now OpenHab will start automatically when you boot up your PI.

If you need to start or stop OpenHAB manually you can do it by using the service command on the Raspberry

This will stop OpenHAB:

sudo service openhab stop

This will start OpenHAB:

sudo service openhab start

To restart OpenHAB, issue this command:

sudo service openhab restart

And to check the status of the OpenHAB daemon:

sudo service openhab status