nttgin-BGPalerter/docs/linux-service.md

Run BGPalerter as a Linux Service

If you are interested in running this application as a service on a Linux server here is a basic guide covering how to do that. This process works for RHEL 7 based Linux installations. It will likely work very similiarly on other systemctl enabled installations.

Create directory for the application to reside

Create a directory to place the application files.

mkdir /opt/bgpalerter

If this is a new installation cd /opt/bgpalerter before downloading your files and running them for the first time. If this is an existing install simply move the files of your existing install into this directory mv -t /opt/bgpalerter bgpalerter-linux-x64 bgpalerter.pid config.yml prefixes.yml

This is the directory where the binary and yaml config files will be stored. The application will also create logs and src subdirectories here if needed. You do not have to use /opt/bgpalerter as your directory of choice, if you choose something else - simply make sure whatever you choose gets updated in the systemd service file below as well.

Create systemd service file

Next you need to create the systemd service file.

vi /etc/systemd/system/bgpalerter.service

The contents of this file should be as follows:

[Unit]
Description=BGPalerter
After=network.target

[Service]
Type=simple
WorkingDirectory=/opt/bgpalerter
ExecStart=/opt/bgpalerter/bgpalerter-linux-x64

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

Reload systemd

Reload systemd to register the new configuration.

systemctl daemon-reload

Enable and start the service

Enable BGPalerter to start at boot and then start the service.

systemctl enable bgpalerter

systemctl start bgpalerter

Another helpful trick

Create this file.

vi /usr/bin/bgpalerter

The contents of this file should be as follows:

#!/bin/bash

for arg in "$@"
do
  if [ "$arg" == "--help" ] || [ "$arg" == "-h" ]
  then
    echo "--start    Start the Services"
    echo "--stop     Stop the Services"
    echo "--restart  Restart the Services"
  elif [ "$arg" == "--start" ]
  then
    echo "Starting BGPalerter"
    systemctl start bgpalerter.service
  elif [ "$arg" == "--stop" ]
  then
    echo "Stopping BGPalerter"
    systemctl stop bgpalerter.service
  elif [ "$arg" == "--restart" ]
  then
    echo "Restarting BGPalerter"
    systemctl restart bgpalerter.service
fi
done

Make that file executable.

chmod +x /usr/bin/bgpalerter

This file allows you to simply type the following commands if systemctl is too much work for you to remember!

bgpalerter --help

bgpalerter --start

bgpalerter --stop

bgpalerter --status