Making a Raspi server autostart

This is a tutorial for adding autostart functionality to a CAM-AI server (Raspi or PC). We assume that the server was installed following these instructions.

When you use your surveillance camera and the CAM-AI server for real-life applications, it is important to make sure that the system restarts completely after a reboot or a power outage. This can be achieved by making a Linux system service that starts the CAM-AI server. Here is how this works. Following this procedure, your CAM-AI server will run independently from your PC’s terminal.

Log into your server as user cam_ai. If the name of your machine is different from cam-ai-raspi (cam-ai-debian for example), replace this term with the real name or the IP address.

ssh cam_ai@cam-ai-raspi

First, you create a service definition file:

sudo nano /etc/systemd/system/c_server.service

Then you add the following content to that file:

[Unit] Description=CAM-AI-Server After=network-online.target mariadb.service [Service] User=cam_ai KillMode=process KillSignal=SIGTERM WorkingDirectory=/home/cam_ai/bashes ExecStart=/home/cam_ai/bashes/start-c_server-service.sh [Install] WantedBy=multi-user.target

You save the file and close Nano. After that, you create the directory and bash file:

mkdir ~/bashes

If the directory already exists, you will get an error message, never mind…

nano ~/bashes/start-c_server-service.sh

Then you add the following content to that file: One line is different for servers running on PC hardware. For Debian PCs replace the red line with:

source ~/miniconda3/etc/profile.d/conda.sh

#!/bin/bash mkdir -p /home/cam_ai/cam-ai/data/logs sleep 30s exec >> /home/cam_ai/cam-ai/data/logs/c_server.log 2>> /home/cam_ai/cam-ai/data/logs/c_server.err cd /home/cam_ai/cam-ai source ~/miniforge3/etc/profile.d/conda.sh conda activate tf python cam-ai-server.py manage.py runserver 0.0.0.0:8000 --noreload

Save the file and leave Nano. Then you make the new file executable and enable the newly created service:

sudo chmod +x ~/bashes/start-c_server-service.sh
sudo systemctl enable c_server

sudo reboot now

It’s done. Your server will now autostart your server automatically.

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