setting up a command line as a service with logging

jon_the_eye · 05-03-2016, 10:23 AM

Hi

I am setting up the very useful freegeoip tool (http://freegeoip.net)

I have put it in /usr/sbin and can happily start it with:

/usr/sbin/freegeoip &

- When its running it logs its output to the console.

I want to do two things:
1. Write the log file to /var/log/freegeoip.log (or something similar) and get the log to rotate (like maillog and vsftpd do). I have tried ">" and "|" into logger, but it didn't work.

2. Get it to start when the machine starts and be able to control it with "service" command line.

Turbocapitalist · 05-03-2016, 12:59 PM

Which distro are you using and which version? Those are two areas where they can vary a bit.

A generic, quick-and-dirty option for getting it to start automatically that might work for your system could be to launch it from rc.local

Code:

/usr/sbin/freegeoip > /var/log/freegeoip.log 2>&1 &

The log file has to be owned or otherwise writable by the account running the program. Group permissions work, too.

Then, if your system has it, put in a line in /etc/logrotate.conf and restart the daemon. logrotate.conf has its own manual page with details, but you can also copy one of the existing settings and adapt it. Be sure to set the right user, group and permissions in the configuration.

jon_the_eye · 05-04-2016, 02:33 AM

Thanks. "turbo" That command line works great - it's now logging to the log folder.

Sorry, forgot to mention my distro - I am running Centos 6.4/64bit

I've added it to rc.local and it is started on reboot, when it reboots it overwrites the log file, but this is fine.

Ideally, I'd like to get the log files to rotate and create a script in /etc/init.d to control it as a normal service, but as I have a working solution, I will leave it for now.

Regards

Turbocapitalist · 05-04-2016, 02:50 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jon_the_eye

I've added it to rc.local and it is started on reboot, when it reboots it overwrites the log file, but this is fine.

Then appending should save the logs between reboots.

Code:

/usr/sbin/freegeoip >> /var/log/freegeoip.log 2>&1 &

About the log rotation, you can put a file in /etc/logrotate.d/ named freegeoip containing something like the following:

Code:

/var/log/freegeoip.log {
        missingok
        notifempty
        rotate 12345
        weekly
        create 644 foo bar
}

Where "create" has the permissions, user, and group that you want for the log file. weekly can be substituted with daily or hourly or yearly or whatever. See the manual page for logrotate(8) for the details and make sure you have what you need rather than copying the above verbatim.