Knowledge Base

How to Setup Neo4j to Startup on Linux Server Reboot

If you want to emulate the Neo4j RPM service with a tar installation on Linux systems, do the following steps:

As root:

  1. Copy the $NEO4J_HOME/bin/neo4j script file to /etc/init.d

  2. Edit the /etc/init.d/neo4j script file to uncomment the NEO4J_HOME variable and set this to the correct Neo4j home value. The NEO4J_HOME variable setting in the section marked:

    # Provides these environment variables:
NEO4J_HOME=<full_path_to_your_NEO4J_HOME>

Once you have made these changes, then you can manually start and start neo4j as service as root.

If you execute the following as root, this will start neo4j as the "neo4j" user, so the pid will be owned by this user:

# su - neo4j -c "service neo4j start"

If your neo4j user for example has sudo privileges, you can also perform these commands from the user level:

$ sudo service neo4j start

To setup the automation of stop/start of Neo4j when the Linux server is rebooted, follow these steps:

As root:

a) Create the file /etc/init.d/neo4j_ctl with the following contents:

#!/bin/sh

        OWNER=neo4j #Set to the owner of the Neo4j installation

        case "$1" in
        'start')
            su - $OWNER -c "service neo4j start"
            ;;
        'stop')
            su - $OWNER -c "service neo4j stop"
            ;;
        'restart')
            su - $OWNER -c "service neo4j restart"
            ;;
        *)
            echo "Usage: $0 { start | stop | restart }"
            exit 1
            ;;
        esac
        exit 0

b) Set the permissions for the script:

# chmod 744 /etc/init.d/neo4j_ctl

c) Test the script by shutting down the database

# /etc/init.d/neo4j_ctl stop

d) Test the script by starting up the database

# /etc/init.d/neo4j_ctl start

e) Configure the system to start Neo4j at the correct run level and to stop Neo4j at run level 0.

Run the following to determine the Linux run level to run in:

# /sbin/runlevel

If run level is 3 then follow these steps:

# cd /etc/rc3.d
# ln -s ../init.d/neo4j_ctl S40neo4j_ctl
# cd /etc/rc0.d
# ln -s ../init.d/neo4j_ctl K30neo4j_ctl

If runlevel is 5 then follow these steps :

# cd /etc/rc5.d
# ln -s ../init.d/neo4j_ctl S40neo4j_ctl
# cd /etc/rc0.d
# ln -s ../init.d/neo4j_ctl K30neo4j_ctl

f) Restart the Linux system and check that Neo4j is automatically restarted.