Is it necessary to add a respawn line to make the service run in startup?

Question

I'm trying to run a service when the system starts up by following this tutorial

I have a script named service.

To make it run on startup, I ran

 sudo update-rc.d service enable

and then rebooted using sudo reboot and it works.

I'm curious as to whether I need to add a respawn line or not since it is used in this article. In my case it works even I do not add that line.

Add a respawn line for this service at the bottom of the /etc/inittab file. Here's a generic example:
/etc/inittab

id:2345:respawn:/bin/sh /path/to/application/startup

My Ubuntu version : 14.04

If that article uses /etc/inittab, it is really outdated. No current version of Ubuntu uses it. What version are you using? — muru, Feb 08 '17 at 04:32
If you're using 14.04, use an Upstart job instead of /etc/init.d/ scripts. — muru, Feb 08 '17 at 04:34
Because Upstart jobs can respawn, but without inittab (which isn't used anyway), init.d scripts can't. — muru, Feb 08 '17 at 04:36
@muru You mean I should not follow this http://www.jcgonzalez.com/linux-java-service-wrapper-example ? — John Joe, Feb 08 '17 at 04:36
@muru what is the used of respawn ? I use init.d without respawn it still working fine. Can you explain more ? I'm new to Ubuntu and Linux. Thanks a lot. — John Joe, Feb 08 '17 at 04:47

score 2 · Accepted Answer · answered Feb 08 '17 at 14:35

2

Respawn command is used to restart a process if it is not running currently in the system. If the process get stopped in the system, then respawn can be used to trigger the starting of the process.

answered Feb 08 '17 at 14:35

ADHITHYA SRINIVASAN

113

Is it necessary to add a respawn line to make the service run in startup?

1 Answers1