NGINX and uWSGI work but don't begin at startup

Question

I have followed this tutorial to install uwsgi with nginx: Setting up Nginx and uWSGI for CGI scripting.

It all works, but it only works after I execute the command

sudo -u www-data ./uwsgi ./uwsgi_config.ini

I have to mention that I run headless and do all the work from a ssh terminal.

After I execute the command I cannot do anything else, unless I stop uwsgi with Ctrl-C (it just shows when a script a running). How to keep it running in the background and start it on startup? I tried to add it to .bashrc but I still cannot use the console until I end uwsgi.

Answer 1

You can use screen with a cronjob. This is what I do when I need to run something in the background at boot.

To do this, you will need to install screen with the command:

sudo apt-get install screen

Once that's done, edit your crontab file with:

crontab -e

and add this line to the bottom:

@reboot screen -d -m -S uwsgi sudo -u www-data ./uwsgi ./uwsgi_config.ini

and then reboot. It should be running in the background once your boot has finished. To attach the screen and see the script running, enter the command:

screen -r uwsgi

If you want to exit that screen without killing it, hit CTRL+A+D. (All three keys at the same time.)

Answer 2

The "right way" to do this is to create a systemd service.

Put the following in /etc/systemd/system/uwsgi.service (make sure to change /path/to/project/directory):

[Unit]
Description=uWSGI instance

[Service]
ExecStartPre=-/bin/bash -c 'mkdir -p /run/uwsgi; chown www-data:www-data /run/uwsgi;'
ExecStart=/bin/bash -c 'cd /path/to/project/directory; uwsgi --ini uwsgi_config.ini'

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

Then run:

systemctl daemon-reload
systemctl enable uwsgi

Then restart the system; it will start on boot now!

While screen may work; it's a hack. The init system is how programs are started and stopped automatically under Linux, and systemd is the modern init system used by Raspbian.

Anything you put in ExecStartPre will be run before the program is started, and ExecStart is the command used to actually run the program.