Linux: Let your program run as background service

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Process - checkIn this post you will learn how to convert your headless Linux program to a service running in the background.

Here with headless is meant a program without user interaction and without graphical user interface (GUI).

Assumed is that you are running a Linux distribution with Systemd enabled, like Ubuntu 15.10.

In the example below, the name of the service is ‘my-service‘ and the executable is named: ‘/opt/bin/MyProgram‘. Of course you can change these to your own needs.

First create a file:

/etc/systemd/system/my-service.service

.. with these contents:

[Unit]
Description=MyService

[Service]
Type=simple
Restart=always
RestartSec=30
UMask=022
ExecStart=/opt/bin/MyProgram

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

After creating the file, let the systemd-daemon restart to read the new configuration file:

sudo systemctl daemon-reload

Now you are ready to start your new service:

sudo systemctl start my-service

To check the status of the service, run the command:

sudo systemctl status my-service

When everything is ok, make sure the service will be started at the next boot:

ln -s /etc/systemd/system/my-service.service /etc/systemd/system/multi-user.target.wants/my-service.service

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