Very occasionally openvpn or the SMB service has stopped when I’m abroad. If it’s the SMB service I can use VPN to login to ipfire and start the SMB service. However, if it’s openvpn, I can’t use my server anymore to access files.
How can I make these (or any) services automatically restart if they stop? Or maybe even just attempt to start them every, say, 24 hours, assuming they won’t start if they’re already running?
Thanks
Praful
monit also has the ability to restart a stopped service. See the examples on this page:
Thanks Jon - monit looks perfect for my requirements.
Praful
Thanks for replying, Shaun. Good to know there’s an option to restart the server.
An other way is to use a cron script like this
ps -ef | grep fcron | grep -v grep
[ $? -eq “0” ] && echo “process is running” || /etc/rc.d/init.d/fcron start
to add a new file check-fcron in /etc/fcron.minutely/ for exemple
Thanks. Good to know of a simpler option like cron. Thanks for providing an example.
Hello,
This is an example for samba service :
First you can check service status :
/etc/rc.d/init.d/samba status
create a file : nano /etc/fcron.minutely/check-samba
Paste this 2 lines :
ps -ef | grep samba | grep -v grep
[ $? -eq “0” ] && echo “process is running” || /etc/rc.d/init.d/samba start
to save : Ctrl x and y
chmod 754 /etc/fcron.minutely/check-samba
Now, you can test the script by stopping samba service, check status
/etc/rc.d/init.d/samba stop
/etc/rc.d/init.d/samba status
Samba should be down
run this command to take effect the fcron task
/etc/rc.d/init.d/fcron restart
Wait a minute and test service status :
/etc/rc.d/init.d/samba status
This is an example for samba service
Thank you for taking the time to provide a detailed example.
I don’t have a process called samba, which is fine since you probably just gave that as an example. However, when I run
/etc/rc.d/init.d/samba status
the following is returned:
nmbd is running with Process ID(s) 22975.
smbd is running with Process ID(s) 22990 22989 22982 21569.
winbindd is running with Process ID(s) 23154 22994 22993.
Grepping for these processes returns three processes for smbd, one for nmbd and three for winbindd.
Please could you update your example for this situation?
For OpenVPN, I can’t see a script to start it /etc/rc.d/init.d/. Looking at processes, returns:
nobody 5621 1 0 Feb27 ? 04:36:56 /usr/sbin/openvpn --config /var/ipfire/ovpn/server.conf
root 5662 1 0 Feb27 ? 00:00:09 /usr/bin/python3 /usr/sbin/openvpn-authenticator -d
Do I need to be looking for both these processes? I noticed that there is no pid file in /var/run for the authenticator. So I can configure just one in monit.
Thanks
Praful
Praful,
I think this batch can check the status of each desired process :
ps -ef | pgrep smbd | grep -v grep
[ $? -eq "0" ] && echo "process is running" || /etc/rc.d/init.d/samba start
For OpenVPN, I don’t find the solution yet 
As you can see from the output, a feature with several processes has to be handled a bit more exactly.
Samba consists of smbd (file and printer sharing) , nmbd ( NetBIOS-to-IP-address name service ), winbindd ( Name service switch ). So the information ‘smbd is not running’ doesn’t imply ‘all Samba services are not running’.
Therefore it is better to do a /etc/rc.d/init.d/samba restart. This kills all associated processes before starting the service.
Thanks. If I understand correctly, I’d check for all three processes and if the process being checked is no longer running then I should restart samba (taking Bernhard Bitsch’s comment into account).
Thank you Bernhard !
For openVPN, I think have a solution. You should test this on your own installation before :
ps -ef | pgrep openvpn | grep -v grep
[ $? -eq "0" ] && echo "process is running" || /usr/local/bin/openvpnctrl -r
After validation, you could use this script in fcron.minutely :
ps -ef | pgrep nmbd | grep -v grep
[ $? -eq "0" ] && echo "process is running" || /etc/rc.d/init.d/samba restart
ps -ef | pgrep smbd | grep -v grep
[ $? -eq "0" ] && echo "process is running" || /etc/rc.d/init.d/samba restart
ps -ef | pgrep winbindd | grep -v grep
[ $? -eq "0" ] && echo "process is running" || /etc/rc.d/init.d/samba restart
ps -ef | pgrep openvpn | grep -v grep
[ $? -eq "0" ] && echo "process is running" || /usr/local/bin/openvpnctrl -r
/usr/local/bin/openvpnctrl -r (restart openvpn)
/usr/local/bin/openvpnctrl -k (stop or kill openvpn)
/usr/local/bin/openvpnctrl -s (start openvpn)
That’s great Baptiste Bay! Many thanks for providing the streamlined solution.
I’ve learnt a few things from your posts today, which is useful because I switched to Linux Mint from Windows a few months ago on my laptop.