service to start on boot doesn't work with update-rc.d command

Question

I have installed redis server on my Ubuntu based server, so I can start/stop/restart redis server. The redis_server.sh is already in the /etc/init.d.

Now I want to make redis start on boot. I learned from a website that by working with the update_rc.d command, I can add / remove the service on boot.

I tried the update-rc.d to add startup on boot, which doesn't work:

root@ip-172-31-4-108:/etc/init.d# update-rc.d redis-server defaults
//System start/stop links for /etc/init.d/redis-server already exist.

In addition, there are some services I don't want to startup on boot, so I tried:

root@ip-172-31-4-108:/etc/init.d# update-rc.d reids_6379 remove
 Removing any system startup links for /etc/init.d/reids_6379 ...

But when rebooting next time, I still see that service running on boot.

Solution 1

Hate to admit that none of this worked on Raspberry Pi (Debian 10). If I want to stick with old school /etc/init.d/my_script location I needed to do the following.

# runlevel
N 5
# cd /etc/rc5.d
# ln -s ../init.d/my_script S40my_script


(probably should be done for other runlevels as well)
# ls /etc/rc5.d/ | grep my_script
S40my_script

Solution 2

For removing services you must use the -f parameter:

sudo update-rc.d -f <service> remove

For configuring startup on boot, try:

sudo update-rc.d <service> enable

See if the following symlink is created:

/etc/rc.2d/S20<service>

or something similar.

Solution 3

In ubuntu version 18.04 TLS, I found that update-rc.d does not work fine if there is no specific comment block in the start script that looks like this:

### BEGIN INIT INFO
# Provides: myprogram
# Required-Start: $ local_fs $ remote_fs $ syslog $ network $ time
# Required-Stop: $ local_fs $ remote_fs $ syslog $ network
# Default-start: 2 3 4 5
# Default-Stop: 0 1 6
# Short-Description: myprogram some description
### END INIT INFO

Comments

[deFreitas]

It doesn't works for me but it does. By some reason enable is not creating the file at /etc/rc..

[erny]

Do you receive an error? Try "sudo update-rc.d <service> defaults"

[deFreitas]

No, I ran then it does nothing and give no output

[deFreitas]

Debian 9 x64 logged as root

[deFreitas]

It's some specific issue with Debian in that version, I already tried it before and it works in Ubuntu at least

[Jeff Terrell Ph.D.]

I'm on Ubuntu 18.04 and this didn't work. When I used the command given in the answer linked in the first comment (systemctl enable jira in my case), I got an error: update-rc.d: error: jira Default-Start contains no runlevels, aborting.. (Maybe that's why the update-rc.d command is silently failing? I don't know.) I then copied the comment block at the start of another service in /etc/init.d/, modifying a few details, and then the systemctl command worked.

[R01k]

On Raspbian Buster (v10) #! /bin/sh must appear right before the BEGIN INIT INFO block.