How do I make sphinx restart when I reboot my Ubuntu server?

I don't know Sphinx, but here's the basic approach. Create a file /etc/init.d/searchd with the following contents (there's also this script, but you'll probably need to adjust it a bit):

#!/bin/bash

case "${1:-''}" in
  'start')
        # put the command to start sphinx
        # i.e., /usr/bin/searchd start or /usr/bin/searchd --daemon or whatever the command is
        ;;
  'stop')
        # stop command here
        ;;
  'restart')
        # restart command here
        ;;
  *)
        echo "Usage: $SELF start|stop|restart"
        exit 1
        ;;
esac

Then execute the following:

$ sudo update-rc.d searchd defaults

To control the service manually:

$ sudo /etc/init.d/searchd <start|stop|restart>

We deployed Sphinx for a customer on Debian systems, and used Runit to manage the processes. We didn't have to write a special init script, and since we were using Runit on other platforms (CentOS/RHEL mainly) it was perfectly portable.

The version of sphinx that is packaged for ubuntu at time of writing (0.99) has the startup script below.

I re-used it for the 2.0.1 beta which I compiled from source, just changing the line DAEMON=/usr/local/.. and it works for me.

#! /bin/sh
#
#       Written by Miquel van Smoorenburg <[email protected]>.
#       Modified for Debian
#       by Ian Murdock <[email protected]>.
#               Further changes by Javier Fernandez-Sanguino <[email protected]>
#               Modified for sphinx by Radu Spineanu <[email protected]>
#
#

### BEGIN INIT INFO
# Provides:          sphinxsearch
# Required-Start:    $local_fs $remote_fs $syslog $network $time
# Required-Stop:     $local_fs $remote_fs $syslog $network
# Default-Start:     2 3 4 5
# Default-Stop:      0 1 6
# Short-Description: Fast standalone full-text SQL search engine
### END INIT INFO


PATH=/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/sbin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin
DAEMON=/usr/local/sphinx/bin/searchd
NAME=sphinxsearch
DESC=sphinxsearch

test -x $DAEMON || exit 0

LOGDIR=/var/log/sphinxsearch
PIDFILE=/var/run/searchd.pid
DODTIME=1                   # Time to wait for the server to die, in seconds
                            # If this value is set too low you might not
                            # let some servers to die gracefully and
                            # 'restart' will not work

# Include sphinxsearch defaults if available
if [ -f /etc/default/sphinxsearch ] ; then
    . /etc/default/sphinxsearch
fi

if [ "$START" != "yes" ]; then
  echo "To enable $NAME, edit /etc/default/sphinxsearch and set START=yes"
  exit 0
fi


set -e

running_pid()
{
    # Check if a given process pid's cmdline matches a given name
    pid=$1
    name=$2
    [ -z "$pid" ] && return 1
    [ ! -d /proc/$pid ] &&  return 1
    cmd=`cat /proc/$pid/cmdline | tr "\000" "\n"|head -n 1 |cut -d : -f 1`
    # Is this the expected child?
    [ "$cmd" != "$name" ] &&  return 1
    return 0
}

running()
{
# Check if the process is running looking at /proc
# (works for all users)

    # No pidfile, probably no daemon present
    [ ! -f "$PIDFILE" ] && return 1
    # Obtain the pid and check it against the binary name
    pid=`cat $PIDFILE`
    running_pid $pid $DAEMON || return 1
    return 0
}

force_stop() {
# Forcefully kill the process
    [ ! -f "$PIDFILE" ] && return
    if running ; then
        kill -15 $pid
        # Is it really dead?
        [ -n "$DODTIME" ] && sleep "$DODTIME"s
        if running ; then
            kill -9 $pid
            [ -n "$DODTIME" ] && sleep "$DODTIME"s
            if running ; then
                echo "Cannot kill $LABEL (pid=$pid)!"
                exit 1
            fi
        fi
    fi
    rm -f $PIDFILE
    return 0
}

case "$1" in
  start)
        echo -n "Starting $DESC: "

        # Check if we have the configuration file
        if [ ! -f /etc/sphinxsearch/sphinx.conf ]; then
            echo "Please create an /etc/sphinxsearch/sphinx.conf configuration file."
            echo "Templates are in the /etc/sphinxsearch/ directory."
            exit 0
        fi

        start-stop-daemon --start --exec ${DAEMON}
        if running ; then
            echo "$NAME."
        else
            echo " ERROR."
        fi
        ;;
  stop)
        echo -n "Stopping $DESC: "
        start-stop-daemon --stop --quiet --oknodo --pidfile $PIDFILE \
            --exec $DAEMON
        echo "$NAME."
        ;;
  force-stop)
        echo -n "Forcefully stopping $DESC: "
        force_stop
        if ! running ; then
            echo "$NAME."
        else
            echo " ERROR."
        fi
        ;;
  restart)
    echo -n "Restarting $DESC: "
        start-stop-daemon --stop --quiet --oknodo --pidfile $PIDFILE \
            --exec $DAEMON
        [ -n "$DODTIME" ] && sleep $DODTIME
        start-stop-daemon --start --exec ${DAEMON}
        echo "$NAME."
        ;;

  status)
    echo -n "$LABEL is "
    if running ;  then
        echo "running"
    else
        echo " not running."
        exit 1
    fi
    ;;
  *)
    N=/etc/init.d/$NAME
    # echo "Usage: $N {start|stop|restart|reload|force-reload}" >&2
    echo "Usage: $N {start|stop|restart|force-reload|status|force-stop}" >&2
    exit 1
    ;;
esac

exit 0

Add a restart script to /etc/init.d directory.

I don't really know sphinx, but judging by the online manual, you need to have a startup script to run the daemon. Typically this is done by creating an entry in /etc/init.d and linking it into the appropriate /etc/rcX.d directory. Check the README file in /etc/init.d for details.

If nothing else, something like this is the quick and dirty answer:

$ cat > /etc/init.d/sphinx
cd /usr/local/sphinx/etc
/usr/local/sphinx/bin/searchd
^D
$ ln -s /etc/init.d/sphinx /etc/init.d/rc3.d/S99sphinx

Create a short script file (bash, perhaps) that has the equivalent of the following line in it:

/path/to/sphinx/installation/searchd --config /path/to/sphinx/config/sphinx.conf &

Then move the script to /etc/init.d as root, and chmod the script ("chmod +x myscript.sh")

I would suggest an even simpler solution:

Just add /usr/bin/searchd to /etc/rc.local before the line that says exit 0

If you happen to use sphinx in your rails application is a dead easy way to manage this with the whenever gem.

Ryan Bates made a very good screencast about it. This site won't let me put more than one link here but I recommend it.

Take a look at this forum post: http://sphinxsearch.com/forum/view.html?id=3568#18044

Basically you can add a cron job that will start Sphinx on reboot by executing this from the command line:

crontab -e

Then add the following:

@reboot searchd --config /path/to/config.conf