Ruby script as service

Question

Well, the title say it all. I have a ruby script I want running as a service (one I can start and stop) on my Linux box. I was able to find how to do it on Windows here

Some readings point to creating daemons or cron tasks.

I just need something simple I can call on my box's reboot, and can stop/start whenever I please. my script has an internal sleep call, and runs in "eternal loop"

thanks in advance

Answer 1

RAA - deamons is a verfy useful tool for creating unix daemons from ruby scripts.

Answer 2

I've actually found a much better way of doing that by using ruby scripts.

This is how I did it:

First of all, I installed daemon

gem install daemon

Then I did:

require 'rubygems'
require 'daemons'

pwd  = File.dirname(File.expand_path(__FILE__))
file = pwd + '/runner.rb'

Daemons.run_proc(
   'my_project', # name of daemon
   :log_output => true
 ) do
   exec "ruby #{file}"
end

I then create a file called runner.rb, in which I can call my scripts such as:

require "/var/www/rails/my_project/config/environment"
Post.send('details....')

Daemons is a great gem!