Running as a Service

Running FreeTAKServer as a service on your Linux server can be achieved in multiple ways.

Cron

Cron or Crontab is a basic scheduler that ships with most linux distributions.

We can use this to get a very basic service running with minimal effort.

Edit Crontab

sudo crontab -e

Add this line to the bottom of the file

@reboot nohup sudo python3 -m FreeTAKServer.controllers.services.FTS &

You will need to add any start parameters to the crontab file such as -DataPackageIP.

Systemd

Introduction

Systemd is nearly unavoidable. It has permeated so many aspects of the Linux ecosystem that it is necessary for any Linux admin to know at least the basics of how it works. One of the major selling points of systemd is the ease of writing service files. They aren't scripts. Instead, they're basic configuration files. While they can grow to be complex, they are usually very simple.

background

The main directive is ExecStart, which specifies the command that should be run when the service is started. The command is

/usr/bin/python3 /root/fts.venv/lib/python3.11/site-packages/FreeTAKServer-UI/run.py.

Here's what each part of the command does:

/usr/bin/python3 : This specifies the Python interpreter that should be used to run the code.

-m : This option tells Python to run a module as a script.

/root/fts.venv/lib/python3.11/site-packages/FreeTAKServer-UI/run.py : This is the path to the Python module that should be run as a script.

So when the service is started, the Python interpreter will run the run.py module located in the /root/fts.venv/lib/python3.11/site-packages/FreeTAKServer-UI/ directory.

This code above is running FreeTAKServer-UI, which is a user interface for FreeTAKServer. When the Systemd service is started, it will start the FreeTAKServer-UI interface, allowing users to interact with the FreeTAKServer software through a web browser.

Note

You will need create two separate systemd files, if you're using Web UI - fts.service - fts-ui.service

Create The File

Systemd services exist at /etc/systemd/system. or

/usr/lib/systemd/system/

Any .service file that you create in that directory can be run as a service, if you construct it properly. Create a file that you would like with the .service extension. In our case, to create a file as /etc/systemd/system/FreeTAKServer.service with the following content: (modify the parameters as needed)

[Unit]
Description=FreeTAK Server service
After=network.target
StartLimitIntervalSec=0

[Service]
Type=simple
Restart=always
RestartSec=1
ExecStart=/usr/bin/python3 -m FreeTAKServer.controllers.services.FTS

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

And reload systemd, so it will load new unit file:

sudo systemctl daemon-reload

Start the `fts.service`

sudo systemctl start fts.service

Get the Status of the `fts.service`

sudo systemctl status fts.service

Stop the `fts.service`

sudo systemctl stop fts.service

Start the `fts.service` with the system

sudo systemctl enable fts.service

UI Service

similarly the UI service can be created with /etc/systemd/system/fts-ui.service

[Unit]
Description=FreeTAKServer UI service
After=network.target
StartLimitIntervalSec=0

[Service]
Type=simple
Restart=always
RestartSec=1
ExecStart=/usr/bin/python3 -m /root/fts.venv/lib/python3.11/site-packages/FreeTAKServer-UI/run.py

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

started

see also ZeroTouchInstall Services section to see the complete list of the services created by the installer