How to start a jar file using systemd

linux bash shell shell-scripting

6,560

Using systemd directives in place of shell results in a more consistent environment. This includes not relying on $PATH or the working directory by providing full paths where they are known.

Neither & for job control, nor managing SIGHUP is needed. systemd service units are already backgrounded.

Assuming the program doesn't fork, in other words the java exec keeps running, that's Type=simple

[Unit]
Description=something

[Service]
ExecStart=/usr/bin/java -jar /var/www/test.com/something.jar
StandardOutput=file:/var/log/something.out.txt
StandardError=file:/var/log/something.err.txt
Type=simple
WorkingDirectory=/var/www/test.com

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

6,560

Janith

Updated on September 18, 2022

Comments

Janith over 1 year
I want to start java application on system boot using systemd. I tried to do by adding above scripts. But service is not starting.

my-startup.service
```
[Unit]
Description=Startup

[Service]
ExecStart=/usr/local/sbin/my-startup.sh

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target
```
my-startup.sh
```
cd /var/www/test.com
nohup java -jar *.jar>test.out 2>test.err &
```
But application not starting when server starting.
```
● my-startup.service - Startup
   Loaded: loaded (/etc/systemd/system/my-startup.service; enabled; vendor preset: disabled)
   Active: inactive (dead) since Wed 2018-12-12 16:22:52 +0530; 27s ago
  Process: 650 ExecStart=/usr/local/sbin/my-startup.sh (code=exited, status=0/SUCCESS)
 Main PID: 650 (code=exited, status=0/SUCCESS)

Dec 12 16:22:52 localhost.localdomain systemd[1]: Started Startup.
Dec 12 16:22:52 localhost.localdomain systemd[1]: Starting Startup...
```
- dortegaoh over 5 years
  
  Have you checked your log files?
- dortegaoh over 5 years
  
  Have you checked if the jar is actually running? the way you start it systemd can't check it.
- Janith over 5 years
  
  when I run nohup java -jar *.jar>test.out 2>test.err & alone in the terminal. server is starting
- Ondřej Xicht Světlík over 5 years
  
  Try to rewrite your my-startup.sh using full paths /usr/bin/nohup /usr/lib/jvm/java-11/bin/java .... Modify the paths according to your own distro/java installation.
- Michael Hampton over 5 years
  
  Why do you have a script at all? You should just start java directly from the systemd unit.
Janith over 5 years

This scrips is working fine. But there is a problem in StandardOutput=file:/var/log/something.out.txt StandardError=file:/var/log/something.err.txt. Not created err & out files.
Janith over 5 years

I want to put my test.out & test.err inside of project directory. /var/www/test.com. Is it possible?
John Mahowald over 5 years

Your program would have to write something to stdout or stderr, and the unit would need to be started by a user with permission to write there (root). Put things where you want, dump it all in /opt or wherever. This is just an example that mostly follows conventions.
Janith over 5 years

I put StandardOutput=file:/var/www/test.com/test.out.txt but it doesn't write the log into file. Server starting works fine