Daemonized script fails to start (for Google App Engine)

Question

I'm trying to daemonize a script. I followed a couple tutorials and came up with the following script (never done it before, just filled in a template, not sure what 345 70 30 mean):

#!/bin/bash

# parserservices    Parser Services
#
# chkconfig: 345 70 30
# description: Parser Services
# processname: parserservices

# chkconfig --add parserservices

# Source function library.
. /etc/init.d/functions

# Source networking configuration.
. /etc/sysconfig/network

prog='ParserServices for CENTOS/UNIX'

start() {
   # Check that networking is up.
   [ "$NETWORKING" = "no" ] && exit 1

        echo -n $"Starting $prog: "
   daemon --check parserservices nohup /home/centos/parserservices/start_dev_server_centos.sh &
   RETVAL=$?
        echo
        [ $RETVAL -eq 0 ] && touch /var/lock/subsys/parserservices
   return $RETVAL
}

stop() {
        echo -n $"Shutting down $prog: "
   killproc java
   RETVAL=$?
   echo
   [ $RETVAL -eq 0 ] && rm -f /var/lock/subsys/parserservices
   return $RETVAL
}

# See how we were called.
case "$1" in
  start)
   start
        ;;
  stop)
   stop
        ;;
  status)
   status parserservices
   RETVAL=$?
   ;;
  restart|reload)
   stop
   start
   RETVAL=$?
   ;;
  *)
        echo $"Usage: $0 {start|stop|restart|status}"
        RETVAL=3
esac

exit $RETVAL

This is just a test and there won't be any more java processes running, so killing java shouldn't be a problem (unless someone can provide a better alternative, this is intended to run another script that does some initialization and launches java with the Google App Engine development server).

I copied it to /etc/rc.d/init.d/parserservices and initialized and started as shown below:

$ sudo chmod 755 /etc/rc.d/init.d/parserservices
$ sudo chkconfig --add parserservices
$ sudo systemctl daemon-reload    
$ sudo service parserservices start
Starting parserservices (via systemctl):                   [  OK  ]

But nothing gets started. When I run the script myself it all runs fine:

sudo nohup /home/centos/parserservices/start_dev_server_centos.sh &
root     21510  0.0  0.0 189372  2680 pts/1    S    21:18   0:00 sudo nohup /home/centos/parserservices/start_dev_server_centos.sh
root     21511  0.0  0.0 113116  1184 pts/1    S    21:18   0:00 /bin/bash /home/centos/parserservices/start_dev_server_centos.sh
root     21512 27.0  0.2 6619624 37596 pts/1   Sl   21:18   0:00 java -ea -cp /home/centos/gae/appengine-java-sdk-1.9.27/lib/appengine-tools-api.jar com.google.appengine.tools.KickStart com.google.appengine.tools.development.DevAppServ
root     21560  166  0.5 11041848 89188 pts/1  Sl   21:18   0:01 /usr/lib/jvm/java-1.8.0-openjdk-1.8.0.65-3.b17.el7.x86_64/jre/bin/java -Xmx8184m -javaagent:/home/centos/gae/appengine-java-sdk-1.9.27/lib/agent/appengine-agent.jar -Xboo
centos   21578  0.0  0.0 123356  1384 pts/1    R+   21:18   0:00 ps au

By the way, the script's permissions:

-rwxrwxr-x.  1 centos centos  155 Jan 12 20:06 start_dev_server_centos.sh

This is the output of systemctl status parserservices:

$ sudo systemctl status parserservices
parserservices.service - SYSV: Parser Services
   Loaded: loaded (/etc/rc.d/init.d/parserservices)
   Active: active (exited) since Tue 2016-01-12 21:05:06 UTC; 18h ago

Jan 12 21:05:06 curator.novalocal parserservices[21266]: Starting ParserServices for CENTOS/UNIX:
Jan 12 21:05:06 curator.novalocal parserservices[21266]: /etc/rc.d/init.d/parserservices: Usage: daemon [+/-nicelevel] {program}
Jan 12 21:05:06 curator.novalocal systemd[1]: Started SYSV: Parser Services.
Jan 12 21:10:13 curator.novalocal systemd[1]: Started SYSV: Parser Services.

Answer 1

There is more elegant way to create daemons in CentOS 7.

I see you are mixing classic(SysV) and new(systemd) approach for executing and managing daemons. The classic way, was to create script in /etc/init.d/ as You did, but I see you are using systemctl, which is a part of a systemd. I suggest creating daemon in systemd way.

Remove your script from /etc/init.d and create parserservices.service file in /etc/systemd/system directory, which looks like that:

[Unit]
Description=Parser Services
After=syslog.target

[Service]
ExecStart=/path/to/your/script/start_dev_server_centos.sh

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

Start it with

systemctl start parserservices

Check it's status with

systemctl status parserservices

If you want it to start at system startup then enable it with

systemctl enable parserservices

Execute systemctl daemon-reload every time you change the .service file.

Read more about daemons in systemd here

Answer 2

According to the message, your daemon command seems to be incorrect:

/etc/rc.d/init.d/parserservices: Usage: daemon [+/-nicelevel] {program}

Try to modify (like suggested here)

daemon --check parserservices nohup /home/centos/parserservices/start_dev_server_centos.sh &

to

nohup /home/centos/parserservices/start_dev_server_centos.sh &

If you want to use daemon, try double quotes:

daemon --check parserservices "nohup /home/centos/parserservices/start_dev_server_centos.sh &"

This will move the effect of & to nohup from daemon.

If your daemon does not support --check, remove it. How to check it?

grep -e '--check=' /etc/init.d/functions

--check=?*)

-> supports.

Answer 3

You can debug the script with the -x option to find out why it is not starting the process as intended.

Instead of calling sudo service parserservices start, try sudo bash -x /etc/rc.d/init.d/parserservices start to see what is going on and where it fails.