Tutorial Using Ubuntu Upstart to keep your dedicated server running after crashes and reboots

Note this guide is for Ubuntu servers only! Other distros will have other tools that accomplish similar things. I'm not familiar with other distros, sorry!

So you've got your server installed, and you want to have your server start on boot and come back alive automatically after crashes. Different from the original guide, you won't be needing screen or tmux any more!

I'm assuming you followed the guide and/or the linux user you're running the server under is named starbound.

As root (ie using sudo), edit the /etc/init/starbound.conf in the editor of your choice, and paste this upstart script in:

Code:

#!upstart
description "Starbound"

# Start the job
exec su -l starbound -c '/home/starbound/server/linux32/launch_starbound_server.sh'

# Start on boot
start on filesystem and net-device-up IFACE=lo

# Restart the process if it dies
respawn

# Give up if restart occurs 10 times in 90 seconds
respawn limit 10 90

Replace the starbound in the 5th line if your user is named differently or your startup script is in a different place.

After that, give your server a good kickstart by entering this command:

Code:

sudo start starbound

And you should be all set! Your server should start on boot and revive itself after crashes. You can manually stop or restart your server using

Code:

sudo stop starbound
sudo restart starbound

You can test out what happens during a crash by killing the process too (note the outputs of the first and lastpgreps. They should be different. If your server didn't start, the last pgrep shouldn't have any output):

Code:

pgrep starbound
pgrep starbound | xargs sudo kill
pgrep starbound

You'll probably also want to modify your update_starbound.sh script (from the original guide) to stop and start your server while you're updating it. Not sure what happens otherwise.

 

Love ya !

 

hi, this worked fine for me after todays update, now "sudo start starbound" does nothing? any troubleshooting?

 

Is there any output when you run the command?

 

I've got this aswell, "sudo start starbound" does nothing? and there are no outputs

 

Thanks for a great tutorial 1bitwonderer.

Since the last Unstable update, you can't run starbound_server with an absolute path.
As a workaround, you could try the following.

Code:

#!upstart
description "Starbound"

# Start the job
setuid starbound
chdir /home/steam/starbound/linux64
exec ./starbound_server

# Start on boot
start on filesystem and net-device-up IFACE=lo

# Restart the process if it dies
respawn

# Give up if restart occurs 10 times in 90 seconds
respawn limit 10 90

 

hey I dont know why but sudo never gets recognized, im using debian 7 runs fine i just want a simple auto restart script
please help asap

 

this keeps giving me a job failed to start error, tried running this as different users, and I can only start my .starbound_server with user "steam" (which has sudo access), any ways to work this around?

 

One possibility is that the user on which you want to run starbound_server does not have a right permission to Starbound directories.
How does the syslog read when you try to start starbound_server?