user upstart job in ~/.init/ is not found

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A few points:

  1. User jobs are not enabled by default in Ubuntu. See:

  2. You never need to reboot after creating any type of Upstart job—they are automatically detected by Upstart (using inotify).

  3. The service command is not part of Upstart—it is the SystemV tool to manipulate SysV jobs. However, Upstart provides SystemV compatibility such that Upstart system jobs can also be manipulated via service (for convenience). The Upstart equivalent commands are start, stop and, restart.

  4. For user jobs, you must use start, stop and, restart (or the initctl equivalents).

Finally, note that user jobs are very basic currently. We plan to enhance them significantly for 12.10 but for now be aware that:

  • Upstart will run all user jobs using /bin/sh -e regardless of which shell you use by default. That -e is also very important (man sh for details).
  • Upstart will only set a minimal set of variables in the user job environment. Hence, you should probably set variables like HOME like this:

    env HOME=/home/james

See:

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Dave Nolan
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Dave Nolan

Updated on September 18, 2022

Comments

  • Dave Nolan
    Dave Nolan over 1 year

    Running 12.04, I have the following upstart job in ~/.init/:

    # myjob
    
    start on net-device-up
    stop on [!12345]
    
    script
    
    echo ">> hello from user script" >> ~/tmp/upstart.log
    
    end script
    

    After rebooting my machine

    service myjob start
    # => myjob: unrecognised service
    

    initctl does list the job, but running it without sudo throws an error:

    initctl start myjob
    # => initctl: Rejected send message, 1 matched rules; type="method_call", sender=":1.100" (uid=1000 pid=13349 comm="initctl start thunderbird ") interface="com.ubuntu.Upstart0_6.Job" member="Start" error name="(unset)" requested_reply="0" destination="com.ubuntu.Upstart" (uid=0 pid=1 comm="/sbin/init")
    

    I would expect to be able to start the job using service or initctl without using sudo. What have I misunderstood?

    Thanks

    • namuol
      namuol over 11 years
      How did you enable User Jobs? The documentation in the answer you accepted is incomplete, at best...
  • Sathish
    Sathish almost 12 years
    How would I auto-start a user job on Ubuntu 12.04? I've found a tutorial, which worked for me on Ubuntu 11.10, but not on Ubuntu 12.04. Any ideas?
  • Signa
    Signa over 11 years
    Strange, the documentation doesn't seem to mention how to enable user jobs, it only mentions the config file, and that the administrator must do it. Aren't we all administrators?
  • ppetraki
    ppetraki over 11 years
    Yeah I just noticed that, you can't overload existing policies either e.g. user=...,..... Take the second block, copy/paste and change the user= to suit. You can also do groups per the DTD.
  • namuol
    namuol over 11 years
    @ppetraki could you please post an answer clearly outlining the changes to be made to /etc/dbus-1/system.d/Upstart.conf? It's baffling how vague and incomplete the documentation on such a critical system utility is.
  • ppetraki
    ppetraki over 11 years
    @namoul, I'll patch the actual docs instead. code.launchpad.net/upstart-cookbook
  • Denis Washington
    Denis Washington over 11 years
    The referred-to Upstart.conf file can be found here.
  • glebm
    glebm about 11 years
    @denisw Is this a drop-in replacement that just enables user jobs? The Upstart.conf file bundled with ubuntu 12.04 server is a lot bigger
  • geekQ
    geekQ about 11 years
    Following Upstart.conf configuration gist.github.com/bradleyayers/1660182 worked for me - Ubuntu 12.04, jobs in ~/.init, no restart after saving Upstart.conf needed.