The right way to start a Daemon on Debian wheezy is with an init script rather than using /etc/rc.local as we did in the instructions for running bitcoind.

Today I went searching for a good init script for bitcoin and again I found a few that were slightly broken (bealers, bitcointalk, github) and I decided to fix them and post my results here. I also modified similar scripts for dashd, devcoind & namecoind… next comes electrum-server and P2Pool…

If you use this script on your bitcoind server, you may have to change the CHUID to your bitcoind user and group and make sure the DAEMON & BITCOINCLI paths are correct for your installation.
Make the script executable by all and link it in to run at startup with:

sudo chmod +x /etc/init.d/bitcoind
sudo update-rc.d bitcoind defaults

If you followed my earlier instructions, you’ll also have to comment (#) out the line that runs bitcoind in /etc/rc.local.

Here’s my /etc/init.d/bitcoind:

#! /bin/sh
### BEGIN INIT INFO
# Provides:          bitcoind
# Required-Start:    $remote_fs
# Required-Stop:     $remote_fs
# Default-Start:     2 3 4 5
# Default-Stop:      0 1 6
# Short-Description: bitcoind daemon startup script
# Description:       bitcoind daemon startup script
### END INIT INFO


# Do NOT "set -e"

# PATH should only include /usr/* if it runs after the mountnfs.sh script
PATH=/sbin:/usr/sbin:/bin:/usr/bin
DESC="Bitcoin Daemon"
NAME=bitcoind
DAEMON=/usr/local/bin/bitcoind
DAEMON_ARGS=-daemon
CLI=/usr/local/bin/bitcoin-cli
PIDFILE=/var/run/$NAME.pid
SCRIPTNAME=/etc/init.d/$NAME
CHUID=bitnode:bitnode

# Exit if the package is not installed
[ -x "$DAEMON" ] || exit 0

# Read configuration variable file if it is present
[ -r /etc/default/$NAME ] && . /etc/default/$NAME

# Load the VERBOSE setting and other rcS variables
. /lib/init/vars.sh

# Define LSB log_* functions.
# Depend on lsb-base (>= 3.0-6) to ensure that this file is present.
. /lib/lsb/init-functions

#
# Function that starts the daemon/service
#
do_start()
{
   # Return
   #   0 if daemon has been started
   #   1 if daemon was already running
   #   2 if daemon could not be started
   start-stop-daemon --start --quiet --pidfile $PIDFILE --exec $DAEMON --test > /dev/null 
      || return 1
   start-stop-daemon --start --quiet --chuid $CHUID --pidfile $PIDFILE --exec $DAEMON -- 
      $DAEMON_ARGS 
      || return 2
}

#
# Function that stops the daemon/service
#
stop_daemon_by_cli () {
    #[ ! -e "$PIDFILE" ] && echo "$DESC not running!" && return 0
    start-stop-daemon --start --chuid $CHUID --exec $CLI -- -rpcwait stop
    return 0
}

do_stop()
{
   # Return
   #   0 if daemon has been stopped
   #   1 if daemon was already stopped
   #   2 if daemon could not be stopped
   #   other if a failure occurred
   stop_daemon_by_cli
   start-stop-daemon --stop --quiet --chuid $CHUID --retry=TERM/30/KILL/5 --pidfile $PIDFILE --name $NAME

   RETVAL="$?"
   [ "$RETVAL" = 2 ] && return 2
   # Wait for children to finish too if this is a daemon that forks
   # and if the daemon is only ever run from this initscript.
   # If the above conditions are not satisfied then add some other code
   # that waits for the process to drop all resources that could be
   # needed by services started subsequently.  A last resort is to
   # sleep for some time.
   start-stop-daemon --stop --quiet --oknodo --retry=0/30/KILL/5 --exec $DAEMON
   [ "$?" = 2 ] && return 2
   # Many  daemons don't delete their pidfiles when they exit.
   rm -f $PIDFILE
   return "$RETVAL"
}

#
# Function that sends a SIGHUP to the daemon/service
#
do_reload() {
   #
   # If the daemon can reload its configuration without
   # restarting (for example, when it is sent a SIGHUP),
   # then implement that here.
   #
   start-stop-daemon --stop --signal 1 --quiet --pidfile $PIDFILE --name $NAME
   return 0
}

case "$1" in
  start)
   [ "$VERBOSE" != no ] && log_daemon_msg "Starting $DESC" "$NAME"
   do_start
   case "$?" in
      0|1) [ "$VERBOSE" != no ] && log_end_msg 0 ;;
      2) [ "$VERBOSE" != no ] && log_end_msg 1 ;;
   esac
   ;;
  stop)
   [ "$VERBOSE" != no ] && log_daemon_msg "Stopping $DESC" "$NAME"
   do_stop
   case "$?" in
      0|1) [ "$VERBOSE" != no ] && log_end_msg 0 ;;
      2) [ "$VERBOSE" != no ] && log_end_msg 1 ;;
   esac
   ;;
  #reload|force-reload)
   #
   # If do_reload() is not implemented then leave this commented out
   # and leave 'force-reload' as an alias for 'restart'.
   #
   #log_daemon_msg "Reloading $DESC" "$NAME"
   #do_reload
   #log_end_msg $?
   #;;
  restart|force-reload)
   #
   # If the "reload" option is implemented then remove the
   # 'force-reload' alias
   #
   log_daemon_msg "Restarting $DESC" "$NAME"
   do_stop
   case "$?" in
     0|1)
      do_start
      case "$?" in
         0) log_end_msg 0 ;;
         1) log_end_msg 1 ;; # Old process is still running
         *) log_end_msg 1 ;; # Failed to start
      esac
      ;;
     *)
        # Failed to stop
      log_end_msg 1
      ;;
   esac
   ;;
  *)
   #echo "Usage: $SCRIPTNAME {start|stop|restart|reload|force-reload}" >&2
   echo "Usage: $SCRIPTNAME {start|stop|restart|force-reload}" >&2
   exit 3
   ;;
esac

exit 0