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jonobacon
Asked: 2012-02-25 14:37:07 +0800 CST

How do I daemonify my daemon?

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As part of the Ubuntu Accomplishments system I have a daemon that runs as well as a client that connects to it. The daemon is written in Python (using Twisted) and provides a dbus service and a means of processing requests from the clients.

Right now the daemon is just a program I run before I run the client and it sets up the dbus service and provides an API that can be used by the clients.

I want to transform this into something that can be installed and run as a system service for the user's session (e.g. starting on boot) and providing a means to start and stop it etc.

The problem is, I am not sure what I need to do to properly daemonify it so it can run as this service. I wanted to ask if others can provide some guidance. Some things I need to ask:

  • How can I treat it as a service that is run for the current user service (not a system service right now)?
  • How do I ensure I can start, stop, and restart this session service?
  • When packaging this, how do I ensure that it installs it as a service for the user's session and is started on login etc?

In responding, if you can point me to specific examples or solutions I need to implement, that would be helpful. :-)

Thanks!

programming application-development python services

2 Answers

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  2. A daemon is basically a program with no direct user interaction... So there is nothing really specific about it. Nevertheless, you have to take care about some keys points :

    • any output or log should go to syslog, not the standard output
    • at startup, create a pid file under /var/run. And clear it at shutdown.
    • you have to write a service supervision file, to be located in /etc/init.d (scripts for existing daemon are a good source of inspiration). This script usually has to start the daemon under the right user, provide it with the right configuration files and so on.
    • your process might begin with a fork, to detach from the calling process, but I'm not really sure about that, especially for a python program.
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