Auto start¶

To make the the Plant Controller software start on startup, it is recommended to use systemd.

This setup assumes that you created the python virtual environment where instructed in the Quick Start Guide.

First, add a script called auto_start.sh to ~/.plant_controller/ containing

#!/bin/bash

source ~/.venv/bin/activate
~/.influxdb/influxdb3 serve --node-id node0 > /dev/null 2>&1 &
cd <PATH_TO_DIRECOTRY_CONTAINING_PLANT_CONTROLLER_SOURCECODE>
python -m plant_controller --log-level INFO run

replacing <PATH_TO_DIRECOTRY_CONTAINING_PLANT_CONTROLLER_SOURCECODE>with the path to the directory containing the plant_controller source code directory.

Then, add a file called plant_controller.service to ~/.config/systemd/user/ containing

[Unit]
Description=Plant Controller DT/PT interface layer

[Service]
ExecStart=%h/.plant_controller/auto_start.sh

[Install]
WantedBy=default.target

This specifies a user service which will run the previous bash script, which in turn will activate the python virtual environment, start the inlfuxdb3 database and start the plant_controller software.

User services are not normally un at startup, so this must be enabled by running

loginctl enable-linger

It is also necessary to ensure that the your PATH is available to systemd, so add systemctl --user import-environment PATH to the end of the file ~/.bashrc.

Finally, enable the service with

systemctl --user enable plant_controller

The plant controller should now automatically run at startup.