The following script is an LSB compliant init.d script allowing the carte webserver of pdi (kettle) to start at boot time.

Once the script is copied at /etc/init.d/carte you can use it the usual way:

service carte start
service carte status
service carte stop
service carte restart

To actually have carte started at boot time, register the script with chkconfig for redhat flavours:

chkconfig --add carte

or use update-rc.d carte defaults on debian flavours:

update-rc.d carte defaults

Note that under Redhat it uses the ‘/etc/rc.d/init.d/functions’ helper script which gives out nice colored output for [OK] or [FAILED]. If this script does not exist, a fallback is present, a bit less nice but working just as well. This means that in theory this script should work under all flavors of Linux.

There are a few configuration variables near the top of the script (user to run carte under, path to carte and port to listen to), but that is about it. You can find the script on github as well.

#!/bin/bash

# Start the carte server as a daemon, and helps managing it in a normal
# (service carte start/stop/status) way.

# Licence: FreeBSD, do what you want with it but do not hold me responsible.

### BEGIN INIT INFO
# Provides: pdi
# Required-Start: $network $syslog $remote_fs
# Required-Stop: $network $syslog
# Default-Start: 3 5
# Default-Stop: 0 1 2 4 6
# Short-Description: Pentaho Carte Server
# Description: Pentaho Carte Server
#
### END INIT INFO

## configuration directives
# Which user does carte run under?
PDIUSER=pentaho
# On which port should it listen?
CARTEPORT=80
# Where is pdi installed?
PDIROOT=/opt/pentaho_pdi
# Normal output log
LOGOUT=/var/log/pentaho_pdi.out.log
# Error output log
LOGERR=/var/log/pentaho_pdi.err.log

## script start here

# Note: The functions script is RH only. It is only used here for sexy (colored)
# output of [OK] or [FAILED] via echo_failure and echo_success.
#
# To make this script work under other flavors of linux, the 2 echo_ functions
# are first defined in a portable (but unsexy) way. If the RH functions script
# exists, its definition will override the portable way.
function echo_failure() { echo -en "\n[FAILED]"; }
function echo_success() { echo -en "\n[OK]"; }
[ -f /etc/rc.d/init.d/functions ] && source /etc/rc.d/init.d/functions

# Very useful for debugging
#set -x

# Find PID of the newest (-n) process owned by $PDIUSER (-u) with carte.sh on
# the full (-f) command, arguments included.
# => this should yield the pid of 'sh ./carte.sh' on STDOUT, with a status of 0
# if there is such a process, 1 otherwise
FINDPID="pgrep -u $PDIUSER -n -f carte.sh";
function _is_running() {
    $FINDPID 1>/dev/null
    return $?
}

function stop_carte() {
    _is_running
    if [ $? -ne 0 ]; then
        echo -n "$0 is not running, cannot stop."
        echo_failure
        echo
        return 1
    else
        echo -n "Stopping $0..."
        # Finding the pid of carte.sh from $FINDPID. Killing it would leave its
        # child, the actual java process, running.
        # Find this java process via ps and kill it.
        $FINDPID | xargs ps h -o pid --ppid | xargs kill
        sleep 1
        _is_running
        if [ $? -eq 0 ]; then
            echo_failure
            echo
            return 1
        else
            echo_success
            echo
            return 0
        fi
    fi

}

function status() {
    _is_running
    if [ $? -eq 0 ]; then
        echo -n "$0 is running."
        echo_success
        echo
        return 0
    else
        echo -n "$0 does not run."
        echo_failure
        echo
        return 1
    fi
}

function start_carte() {
    _is_running
    if [ $? -eq 0 ]; then
        echo -n "$0 already running."
        echo_failure
        echo
        return 1
    else
        echo -n "Starting $0..."
        # Make sure log files exist and are writable by $PDIUSER first
        touch $LOGOUT $LOGERR
        chown $PDIUSER:$PDIUSER $LOGOUT $LOGERR
        su - $PDIUSER -c "cd $PDIROOT && (nohup sh ./carte.sh $(hostname -i) $CARTEPORT 0<&- 1>>$LOGOUT 2>>$LOGERR &)"
        sleep 1
        _is_running
        if [ $? -eq 0 ]; then
            echo_success
            echo
            return 0
        else
            echo_failure
            echo
            return 1
        fi
    fi
}

case "$1" in
    start)
        start_carte
        exit $?
        ;;
    stop)
        stop_carte
        exit $?
        ;;
    reload|force-reload|restart|force-restart)
        stop_carte
        if [ $? -eq 0 ]; then
            start_carte
            exit $?
        else
            exit 1
        fi
        ;;
    status)
       status
       exit $?
       ;;
    *)
        echo "Usage: $0 {start|stop|restart|status}"
        exit 2
esac
exit 0