Create systemd service

Create systemd service

At times you create a script and then you want to have the scripts controlled by systemd or in some cases you wish to have the scripts getting restarted by itself when it is killed due to some reason. In such cases systemd in Linux helps to configure services which can be managed. To do so follow the following steps.

cd /etc/systemd/system

Create a file named your-service.service and include the following:

[Unit]
Description=<description about this service>

[Service]
User=<user e.g. root>
WorkingDirectory=<directory_of_script e.g. /root>
ExecStart=<script which needs to be executed>
Restart=always

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

For Python specific projects which include virtual environment:

[Unit]
Description=<project description>

[Service]
User=<user e.g. root>
WorkingDirectory=<path to your project directory containing your python script>
ExecStart=/home/user/.virtualenv/bin/python main.py
Restart=always
# replace /home/user/.virtualenv/bin/python with your virtualenv and main.py with your script

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

OR

[Unit]
Description=<project description>

[Service]
User=<user e.g. root>
WorkingDirectory=<path to your project directory>
ExecStart=/bin/bash -c 'cd /home/ubuntu/project/ && source venv/bin/activate && python test.py'

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

Reload the service files to include the new service.
sudo systemctl daemon-reload

Start your service
sudo systemctl start your-service.service

To check the status of your service
sudo systemctl status example.service

To enable your service on every reboot
sudo systemctl enable example.service

To disable your service on every reboot sudo systemctl disable example.service