Autostart on boot

This little guide will allow you to configure PyDashboard to run on startup on systems without a GUI (like Ubuntu Server).

Note

This guide has been written after tests on both Ubuntu Server 22.04 and 24.04 with different programs, PyDashboard has been run only on Ubuntu Server 24.04 at the moment of writing.

Warning

This guide takes for granted: - you have already installed and configured PyDashboard once - you are using Ubuntu Server 24.04 or another distro that uses systemd

1. Terminal size

First of all, we need to make sure the columns and rows of the grid are correct.

Login using one of the TTYs and run stty -a.

The first row of the output contains the important information, note the numbers of rows and columns.

From now, it's recommended to work via SSH, as it will be easier to copy-paste commands and text.

2. Configuration file

If you plan to use the grid, open the configuration file with your favourite text editor and create an adequate number of rows and columns so that their total heights and widths sum up to the total number of characters available.

For example:

nano ~/.config/pydasboard/config.yml

grid:
  columns: [37, 7, 30, 15, 24, 16, 31]
  rows: [9, 7, 3, 7, 5, 3, 4, 6, 1, 5]

3. Systemd service

Create a new systemd unit file

sudo nano /etc/systemd/system/pydashboard.service

and paste this content

Change USER to the actual name of the user that will run PyDashboard.

/etc/systemd/system/pydashboard.service

[Unit]
Description=PyDashboard
After=multi-user.target 

[Service]
User=USER

PAMName=login
TTYPath=/dev/tty8
StandardInput=tty
StandardOutput=tty

UtmpIdentifier=tty8
UtmpMode=user

ExecStartPre=/usr/bin/chvt 8
ExecStartPre=+/usr/bin/dmesg -D
ExecStart=/home/USER/.local/bin/pydashboard
Restart=always
RestartSec=3

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

Enable and start the service

sudo systemctl enable pydashboard.service
sudo systemctl start pydashboard.service

PyDashboard should start on the screen, if you notice some colors are wrong check this fix.