LinuxQuestions.org - [SOLVED] Creating a startup script for Openoffice in headless mode

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Creating a startup script for Openoffice in headless mode

Hello,

I have installed openoffice via "yum install openoffice.org-headless" which installed openoffice as a dependency.
Openoffice should be installed, except I can't figure out how to stop or start it.

Running openoffice.org3 as some tutorials state renders a "command not found"

Other tutorials state I should create a .sh file in /etc/init.d/ to install openoffice as a service except the supplied file is for debian and doesn't seem to work on Centos 6.

Does anyone know where I could find such a file or where I could learn how to do it myself?

Thanks a lot!

Arthur

Presuming that you want to run an OOo process as a server, here's the command I use to start it for local use by unoconv on Debian Squeeze ($soffice_port is the port it should listen on, commonly 2002):

Code:

soffice -headless -accept="socket,host=127.0.0.1,port=$soffice_port;urp;" -nofirststartwizard &

Here are a couple of bash functions that my be useful (msg is a generalised messaging function).

Code:

#--------------------------

# Name: start_soffice_server

# Purpose: starts an OpenOffice.org server

# Return: 0 if OpenOffice.org server is started; otherwise calls finalise

#--------------------------

function start_soffice_server {

    local buf rc



    soffice -headless -accept="socket,host=127.0.0.1,port=$soffice_port;urp;" -nofirststartwizard &

    disown $!        # Suppresses the bash job control job ending message

    for (( i=0; i<wait_for_soffice_server; i++ ))

    do

        sleep 1

        ck_soffice_server && return 0

    done

    msg E "Timed out waiting for $wait_for_soffice_server seconds for OpenOffice.org server to start"

    finalise 1



}  # end of function start_soffice_server



#--------------------------

# Name: ck_soffice_server

# Purpose: checks whether a OpenOffice.org server is running

# Return: 0 if one is running; 1 if not

#--------------------------

function ck_soffice_server {

    local buf



    # Is a soffice.bin process listening on the port?

    # ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

    buf=$( netstat --all --numeric --program --tcp 2>/dev/null | grep ":$soffice_port .*LISTEN" )

    if [[ $buf =~ /soffice.bin$ ]]; then

        return 0

    else

        return 1

    fi



}  # end of function ck_soffice_server

Regards the boot script, I no longer have access to a CentOS system but do have a log for a CentOS 5.5 system which records creating boot scripts in /etc/rc.d/init.d/ with 544 permissions and using chkconfig to install links to them in appropriate directories.

Thanks for the quick reply!

I think I've finally figured it out - I hadn't installed the openoffice.org-writer and openoffice.org-draw packages.

Removed everything with

Code:

yum remove openoffice*

followed by

Code:

yum install openoffice.org-headless openoffice.org-writer openoffice.org-draw

After that your command

Code:

soffice -headless -accept="socket,host=127.0.0.1,port=$soffice_port;urp;" -nofirststartwizard &

worked fine.

Thanks a lot for your help!

At simplest, you can add the command to /etc/rc.d/rc.local.

For a more fully featured solution there may be a /etc/init.d/skeleton file (if not, try find /etc/ -name '*skeleton*' ) to use as an example for a full boot script.

I'll look into that. For the moment I've generated a simple startup script with webmin :D

Thanks for all your help!