rc - Automatically Restart Programs after a Reboot

Although we try to avoid it, occasionally, the physical machine your Virtual Private Server resides on may occasionally need to be rebooted (usually for hardware or O/S upgrades). If you have custom applications, such as a database, RealServer, or another program that runs a daemon (a program that is always running), the rc file allows you to add a start-up command that will automatically be run after the server reboots.

Creating an rc file

Your Virtual Private Server's rc file is located in the ~/etc/ directory. Although your core services (Web, FTP, E-mail, cron, shell) do not require a start-up command in your rc file, any custom application daemons you install on your Virtual Private Server will need to be added to the ~/etc/rc file so that they will be started up after a server reboot.

The rc file uses a standard UNIX configuration file format. This means that any line that begins with a # character is considered a comment and is ignored by the system. Lines that do not begin with the # symbol will be executed as a shell command.

The following is an example of an rc file for a server with MySQL and RealServer installed.

# Restart MySQL after a reboot
/usr/local/bin/daemon -f /usr/local/bin/virtual /usr/local/mysql/bin/safe_mysqld --pid-file=/usr/local/mysql/var/mysql.pid

# Real Helix Server
~/usr/local/real/Bin/rmserver -m 32 ~/usr/local/real/rmserver.cfg