How can I run go-ethereum as daemon process on Ubuntu?

Question

The Installation Instructions for Ubuntu suggest running geth from the command line, how can I run it as daemon process / service on Ubuntu?

Answer 1

Run as a systemd service

Create a file geth.service:

[Unit]
Description=Ethereum go client

[Service]
Type=simple
ExecStart=geth 2>%h/.ethereum/geth.log

[Install]
WantedBy=default.target

Enable service:

systemctl --user enable geth.service
systemctl --user start geth.service

Source.

Alternatively you could use screen:

sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install screen -y

Then you can make a bash similar to this (~/geth.sh):

#!/usr/bin/env bash
echo "Starting geth"
screen -dmS geth /usr/bin/geth --verbosity 3

now let's make it executable:

sudo chmod +x ~/geth.sh

You can now run the bash ~/geth.sh

You attach to the screen with screen -x geth

You detach from the screen by pressing CTRL + a then d

If you want to attach to the geth console after the process runs in the background (or in screen), you can use:

geth attach

Source.

Or simply fork it in background:

When starting geht, put a & at the end of the command in a terminal:

geth --rpc &

Before closing the terminal you should disown the process:

disown

You could also pipe the logs to a file like that:

geth --verbosity 4 --rpc 2>> /path/to/logfile

But don't forget to disown it before you close the terminal.

Source.

Answer 2

Just using this command is enough for me:

nohup geth --rpc &

To check if service is running:

ps ax | grep geth

To explore last log messages:

tail -f nohup.out

To stop the service I use:

pkill geth

Answer 3

Here is an update to 5chdn's answer that uses systemd. This shows how to run a headless geth on your Ubuntu server.

Of course, you must install the command line tools first, see https://www.ethereum.org/cli. You should also run MyEtherWallet on your normal desktop computer to create an account + private key so you can receive funds.

Step 1: put on your cape

sudo bash

Other steps here are based on you running as root. If you are not running as root then learn about using systemd with user processes. tl;dr in this case they would only run after you login, but you can configure so a user service starts as boot

Step 2: make a service

cat > /root/geth.service <<EOF
[Unit]
Description=Ethereum go client

[Service]
Type=simple
ExecStart=/usr/bin/geth --etherbase 0xe677698ab732Aa1E56CF2A7997a00e3FA6F5bD88 2>%h/.ethereum/geth.log

[Install]
WantedBy=default.target
EOF

Above, you can substitute your own wallet's etherbase. If you don't specify an etherbase then geth will emit a warning.

Step 3: run it

systemctl --user enable /root/geth.service
systemctl --user start geth.service

This will run it now and after you reboot.

Step 4: test it

sleep 5 # The geth server takes a few seconds to boot up
geth attach

If geth attach is successful, you will know the geth server is running, and you'll see:

Welcome to the Geth JavaScript console!

If something messed up then you'll see:

Fatal: Unable to attach to remote geth: dial unix /root/.ethereum/geth.ipc: connect: connection refused

Answer 4

Best way is to run as systemd:

Create geth.service file (/etc/systemd/system/geth.service):

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

Paste the below

[Unit]
Description=Geth

[Service]
Type=simple
User={$USER}
Restart=always
RestartSec=12
ExecStart=/bin/geth --syncmode "full" --rpc --rpcaddr "0.0.0.0"

[Install]
WantedBy=default.target

Replace {$USER} with username above. Use useradd to create a newUser if required.

sudo useradd -d /home/newUser -m --uid 10000 newUser

Enable and start the service:

sudo systemctl daemon-reload
sudo systemctl enable geth.service
sudo systemctl daemon-reload

service geth status
sudo service geth start

Check the status:

service geth status

Attaching to geth instance:

geth attach

Stop and disable the service:

sudo service geth stop
sudo systemctl disable geth.service
sudo systemctl daemon-reload

Answer 5

Though the accepted answer is great, it didn't work for me. Most likely because I am on AWS Linux AMI (eugh, I know). I intend on switching at some point (systemctl not So far, this seems to have worked for me:

1. Create file /etc/init.d/geth-testnet

#!/bin/bash
#chkconfig: 2345 20 80
#description Start RPC testnet

su ec2-user -c '/path/to/geth --verbosity 3 --testnet --rpc --rpcaddr="0.0.0.0" --rpccorsdomain="*" --rpcapi="db,eth,net,web3,personal"'

2. Run

chmod +x geth-testnet
chkconfig --add geth-testnet
chkconfig --level 345 geth-testnet on