Run Profinity as a Linux service

Run Profinity as a systemd service on Linux to start it automatically on boot and restart it if it fails. Install Profinity first, as described in Install Profinity on Linux and macOS. For the licence that opening the web interface from another machine needs, refer to Run Profinity as a service.

On Linux, Profinity runs as a systemd service through the profinity.sh launcher in the install root, /opt/profinity by default. The bootstrap installer creates the profinity service user and the unit file. These steps cover systemd, which the installer supports. On a distribution without systemd, follow that distribution's documentation for running a daemon.

profinity.sh supports two ways to start Profinity, selected by the -s (--service) flag. Running /opt/profinity/profinity.sh in a terminal starts Profinity in the foreground, which suits testing a configuration before you enable the service. Ctrl+C stops it.

Running systemctl start profinity starts the service, whose unit runs profinity.sh -s. The -s flag does not select the account that Profinity runs under. Always start Profinity through profinity.sh and never by calling dotnet Profinity.dll, because the launcher resolves the installed edition and runs preflight checks.

The systemd unit

The installer writes /etc/systemd/system/profinity.service with these contents:

[Unit]
Description=Profinity
After=syslog.target network.target

[Service]
Type=notify
User=profinity
Group=profinity
WorkingDirectory=/opt/profinity/app
ExecStart=/opt/profinity/profinity.sh -s
Restart=on-failure
TimeoutSec=900

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

Adjust WorkingDirectory and ExecStart if you installed with a different --install-dir. If you installed with --no-systemd or from an archive, create the file yourself, and create the profinity user and the artefacts directory first. Run these commands:

sudo useradd -r -m -d /home/profinity -s /usr/sbin/nologin profinity
sudo mkdir -p /var/lib/prohelion/profinity
sudo chown -R profinity:profinity /var/lib/prohelion

Start the service

The installer already enables the unit, so the start command is normally all you need.

If you edited the unit file, run sudo systemctl daemon-reload to reload the systemd configuration.
If the service was disabled, run sudo systemctl enable profinity.service to enable it at boot.
Start the service:
```
sudo systemctl start profinity.service
```

Service layout

A typical service layout is:

Path	Purpose
`/var/lib/prohelion/profinity`	Artefacts: config, profiles, plugins, logs
`/etc/profinity/env`	JWT signing key and encryption key, when a deployment script keeps them outside `security.yaml`
`/opt/profinity`	Install root: `profinity.sh`, `update.sh`, `VERSION`, `edition.json`
`/opt/profinity/app`	Profinity binaries, self-contained or portable

To update an installed copy, refer to Update Profinity. Set environment variables for a service as Environment= lines in the [Service] section of the unit, because a service does not read ~/.bashrc. Refer to Environment variables.

Check that the service is running

Run sudo systemctl status profinity.service.

Troubleshooting

If the service does not start, read the log with journalctl -u profinity.service.

What you see	Cause	What to do
Profinity logs `Unable to create directory '/var/lib/prohelion/...'` and then fails to save its configuration	The service user does not own the artefacts directory	Run `sudo chown -R profinity:profinity /var/lib/prohelion`
A "file not found" error	The path to `profinity.sh` in the unit does not match where Profinity is installed	Correct the path in the service configuration and start the service again

Next, refer to Apply a licence to open the web interface from another machine.