Most modern Linux distributions use systemd instead of init.d; please use the systemd instructions unless you are sure that init.d is a better approach for your situation.

Because of the lack of ongoing support for the init.d approach, this documentation is unlikely to be updated or tested in the future.

You can set up Solr to run as a daemon. To do so, create a wrapper script in /etc/init.d/vufind:

Important: These instructions were written for VuFind® 3.0 or later, when the Solr script was changed to solr.sh instead of vufind.sh; if running VuFind® 2.x or earlier, you should replace “solr.sh” with “vufind.sh” in these examples.

If you need to run VuFind® with non-default settings, you may wish to add some lines to export environment variables in this script, or else source a script containing all of your environment settings prior to running “solr.sh”. In many newer installations of VuFind®, such a script is already set up as /etc/profile.d/vufind.sh.

Newer versions of Solr do not like to be run by the root user; you may need to either add “export SOLR_ADDITIONAL_START_OPTIONS=-force” to your script to force root permissions, or (preferably) set up your script to run Solr as a dedicated user (which can be done by wrapping the solr.sh command with “/bin/su - username -c …”).

#!/bin/sh
### BEGIN INIT INFO
# Provides: vufind
# Required-Start:
# Required-Stop:
# Default-Start: 2 3 4 5
# Default-Stop: 0 1 6
# Description: VuFind® init script
### END INIT INFO
cd /usr/local/vufind
./solr.sh $*

Note: The information in the INIT INFO block is only required for RedHat-style systems that use the chkconfig utility. You may need to adjust the start and stop runlevels depending on your system configuration.

Note: If your VuFind® instance is installed somewhere other than /usr/local/vufind, be sure to adjust the cd line in the script accordingly.

Make sure that the script is executable (sudo may be needed on the command for some platforms):

chmod +x /etc/init.d/vufind

You will then need to add the script to your runlevel configuration (generally found under /etc/rc.d). The exact setup varies from flavor to flavor of Linux, but a bit of online research should help, as should these tools:

On RedHat (including Fedora): chkconfig --add vufind
On Debian (including Ubuntu): update-rc.d vufind defaults       

If this doesn't seem to work, be sure that VUFIND_HOME and JAVA_HOME are set in the profile of the user running the startup script.

On some platforms, the “service” command is available to make use of startup scripts. In this case, you will be able to use it for Solr after completing configuration:

service vufind start
service vufind stop
service vufind restart
service vufind check

(“sudo” may need to be prefixed to these commands depending on your Linux flavor and security configuration)

If service is available, it is the preferred way of starting and stopping Solr after automation.