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launching python script in terminal at boot and keeping open if/when exception

writing a data logging program that is intended to run when raspberry boots. I'm using lxsessions autostart to launch a shell script that has the command to launch my python program (my python script requires sudo)
while I continue to debug I would like the terminal window to stay open if/when it encounters an error.
I had done this successfully once before but lost my work.
my autostart file is:
#!/bin/bash
#lxpanel --profile LXDE-pi
#pcmanfm --desktop --profile LXDE-pi
#lxterminal -e sudo sh /home/pi/launcher.sh
#xscreensaver -no-splash
my script file is:
#!/bin/sh
echo Script is running
sudo /usr/bin/python3 /home/pi/hms/hms5-1.py
I thought something like this (in the autstart file) would work, but no:
#lxterminal -e -hold sudo sh /home/pi/launcher.sh
a simple internet search spit out of examples on how to execute command at boot, even launching scripts but nothing has helped so far. Thank you in advance.....

So I rebuilt my Raspberry Pi and had to go through this again. So after I was able to get it to work once, I followed my instructions from before, edited them to be clearer the posted here. NOTE - I think the mistake I made before was using sudo (sudo nano) when I should have just used nano....
Also note the python program I am launching is /home/pi/hms/hms2-v2.py
*** setting this up is a 4 step process ***
YOU MUST HAVE XTERM
STEP 1 - INSTALL XTERM:
sudo apt-get install xterm
STEP 2
read https://www.raspberrypi.org/forums/viewtopic.php?t=227191
FIRST CREATE autostart here: /home/pi/.config/lxsession/LXDE-pi/autostart
NOTE THE FOLDERS BELOW /home/pi/.config/ MAY NOT EXIST, IF NOT CREATE THEM EXACTLY AS ABOVE. NOTE: the directory must be LXDE-pi NOT LXDE
Then edit the autostart file
by using nano ~/.config/lxsession/LXDE-pi/autostart
NOTE: DO NOT use sudo in the above command
put the following in the file:
#!/bin/bash
#lxpanel --profile LXDE-pi
#pcmanfm --desktop --profile LXDE-pi
sh /home/pi/launcher.sh
#xscreensaver -no-splash
Step 3
create the script (.sh) file: launcher.sh in the directory /home/pi
include the following in the file launcher.sh:
#!/bin/sh
echo starting script
xterm -T "HMS" -geometry 100x70+10+35 -hold -e sudo /usr/bin/python3 /home/pi/hms/hms2-v2.py
Step 4
make the .sh file executable with: sudo chmod +x launcher.sh

Sleepwatcher on OS X 10.11 not executing script on wake

In installed Sleepwatcher 2.2 on OS X 10.11 and launching it via LaunchD as an agent.
It launches okay and shows up in the activity monitor.
However, I want it to fire off a python script when the computer wakes up.
My installation commands are as follows.
sudo mkdir -p /usr/local/sbin /usr/local/share/man/man8
sudo cp ~/Desktop/sleepwatcher_2.2/sleepwatcher /usr/local/sbin
sudo cp ~/Desktop/sleepwatcher_2.2/sleepwatcher.8 /usr/local/share/man/man8
sudo cp ~/Desktop/sleepwatcher_2.2/sleepwatcher/config/rc.sleep /etc
sudo cp ~/Desktop/sleepwatcher_2.2/sleepwatcher/config/rc.wakeup /etc
sudo cp ~/Desktop/sleepwatcher_2.2/sleepwatcher/config/de.bernhard-baehr.sleepwatcher-20compatibility-localuser.plist /Library/LaunchAgents
chmod +x /etc/rc.sleep
chmod +x /etc/rc.wakeup
chmod +x /usr/local/bin/test.py
My rc.wakeup file is as follows.
#!/bin/sh
/usr/local/bin/python3 /usr/local/bin/test.py
When executing Sleepwatcher at the terimnal window by typing in the following, it seems to work.
/usr/local/sbin/sleepwatcher --verbose --wakeup /usr/local/bin/test.py
However, when trying to run it as a start-up item under LaunchD, it does not seem to work execute my python script.
I have search all over and cannot figure out why it is not working when being launched in LaunchD.
Has anybody ran into this type of problem?
Thanks in advance.

I encountered similar problems so I took a different approach using another open source tool called Hammerspoon. It can provide for automation of bunch of things on MacOS including sleep/wake events. It's quite simple to replicate sleepwatcher's functionality by adding the following to Hammerspoon's ~/.hammerspoon/init.lua (or create a 'spoon') script that triggers when the machine wakes or sleeps and calls the corresponding wake and sleep scripts (in e.g. /Users/username/scripts - ensure username is changed) from sleepwatcher:
function caffeinateWatcher(eventType)
if (eventType == hs.caffeinate.watcher.systemWillSleep or
eventType == hs.caffeinate.watcher.systemWillPowerOff) then
print ("WillSleep...")
-- Execute sleep script
hs.task.new("/Users/username/scripts/rc.sleep", nil):start()
elseif (eventType == hs.caffeinate.watcher.systemDidWake) then
print ("Woken...")
-- Execute wake script
hs.task.new("/Users/username/scripts/rc.wake", nil):start()
end
end
sleepWatcher = hs.caffeinate.watcher.new(caffeinateWatcher)
sleepWatcher:start()
Note if you want Hammerspoon to launch the shell scripts you need to ensure they start with the standard bash shell header #!/bin/bash.

How do I turn my python program into a service on uBuntu?

I have a piece of software made in python I am running on a uBuntu instance. But I want to package it so that the user can see it as a service.
for example, he can do "/etc/init.d/myPythonProgram restart" to restart. Just like any other service.

You want to search for how to create a 'daemon' with python. So...
How do you create a daemon in Python?
https://pypi.python.org/pypi/python-daemon/
https://pypi.python.org/pypi/daemonize

You need to write a script in /etc/init.d/ ,in this script ,you need to define how to start and stop the software.here is an example:
case "$1" in
start)
start_software
;;
stop)
stop_software
;;
*)
echo "Usage: $0 start|stop" >&2
exit 3
;;
exit 0

ubuntu ec2 - run python script at startup with arguments

I have a python script i'd like to start on startup on an ubuntu ec2 instance but im running into troubles.
The script runs in a loop and takes care or exiting when its ready so i shouldn't need to start or stop it after its running.
I've read and tried a lot of approaches with various degrees of success and honestly im confused about whats the best approach. I've tried putting a shell script that starts the python script in /etc/init.d, making it executable and doing update-rc.d to try to get it to run but its failed at every stage.
here's the contents of the script ive tried:
#!/bin/bash
cd ~/Dropbox/Render\ Farm\ 1/appleseed/bin
while :
do
python ./watchfolder18.py -t ./appleseed.cli -u ec2 ../../data/
done
i then did
sudo chmod +x /etc/init.d/script_name
sudo sudo update-rc.d /etc/init.d/script_name defaults
This doesn't seem to run on startup and i cant see why, if i run the command manually it works as expected.
I also tried adding a line to rc.local to start the script but that doesn't seem to work either
Can anybody share what they have found is the simplest way to run a python script in the background with arguments on startup of an ec2 instance.
UPDATE: ----------------------
I've since moved this code to a file called /home/ubuntu/bin/watch_folder_start
#!/bin/bash
cd /home/ubuntu/Dropbox/Render\ Farm\ 1/appleseed/bin
while :
do
python ./watchfolder18.py -t ./appleseed.cli -u ec2 ../../data/
done
and changed my rc.local file to this:
nohup /home/ubuntu/bin/watch_folder_start &
exit 0
Which works when i manually run rc.local but wont fire on startup, i did chmod +x rc.local but that didn't change anything,

Your /etc/init.d/script_name is missing the plumbing that update-rc.d and so on use, and won't properly handle stop, start, and other init-variety commands, so...
For initial experimentation, take advantage of the /etc/init.d/rc.local script (which should be linked to by default from /etc/rc2/S99rc.local). The gets you out of having to worry about the init.d conventions and just add things to /etc/rc.local before the exit 0 at its end.
Additionally, that ~ isn't going to be defined, you'll need to use a full pathname - and furthermore the script will run as root. We'll address how to avoid this if desired in a bit. In any of these, you'll need to replace "whoeveryouare" with something more useful. Also be warned that you may need to prefix the python command with a su command and some arguments to get the process to run with the user id you might need.
You might try (in /etc/rc.local):
( if cd '/home/whoeveryouare/Dropbox/Render Farm 1/appleseed/bin' ; then
while : ; do
# This loop should respawn watchfolder18.py if it dies, but
# ideally one should fix watchfolder18.py and remove this loop.
python ./watchfolder18.py -t ./appleseed.cli -u ec2 ../../data/
done
else
echo warning: could not find watchfolder 1>&2
fi
) &
You could also put all that in a script and just call it from /etc/rc.local.
The first pass is roughly what you had, but if we assume that watchfolder18.py will arrange to avoid dying we can cut it down to:
( cd '/home/whoeveryouare/Dropbox/Render Farm 1/appleseed/bin' \
&& exec python ./watchfolder18.py -t ./appleseed.cli -u ec2 ../../data/ ) &
These aren't all that pretty, but it should let you get your daemon sorted out so you can debug it and so on, then come back to making a proper /etc/init.d or /etc/init script later. Something like this might work in /etc/init/watchfolder.conf, but I'm not yet facile enough to claim this is anything other than a rough stab at it:
# watchfolder - spawner for watchfolder18.py
description "watchfolder program"
start on runlevel [2345]
stop on runlevel [!2345]
script
if cd '/home/whoeveryouare/Dropbox/Render Farm 1/appleseed/bin' ; then
exec python ./watchfolder18.py -t ./appleseed.cli -u ec2 ../../data/0
fi
end script

I found that the best solution in the end was to use 'upstart' and create a file in etc/init called myfile.conf that contained the following
description "watch folder service"
author "Jonathan Topf"
start on startup
stop on shutdown
# Automatically Respawn:
respawn
respawn limit 99 5
script
HOST=`hostname`
chdir /home/ubuntu/Dropbox/Render\ Farm\ 1/appleseed/bin
exec /usr/bin/python ./watchfolder.py -t ./appleseed.cli -u $HOST ../../data/ >> /home/ubuntu/bin/ec2_server.log 2>&1
echo "watch_folder started"
end script
More info on using the upstart system here
http://upstart.ubuntu.com/
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/UbuntuBootupHowto
http://blog.joshsoftware.com/2012/02/14/upstart-scripts-in-ubuntu/

Python Service / Daemon

I'm writing a Python script that I need to have start at boot (it should continue running forever once it is started). I would like to be able to manage the service via running a command like:
sudo service my-service (and either start, stop, restart, etc.)
I have been reading a lot into it and would really like to finish my project. I saw this but would need help implementing it if it were to work Linux Start-up Script. I'm not even sure where to start, I don't really know how to program in bash but I'm open to all solutions. Thank you ahead of time, and I appreciate all responses!

Take a look at zdaemon. It provides a simple way to daemonize a Python process.
Then you can write an init.d script for it - based on your OS.
Or you can use a tool like Upstart, supervisord to control the daemon.
My init.d script (on centos 5.8) looks like this:
. /etc/rc.d/init.d/functions
. /etc/sysconfig/network
APP_PATH=/path/to/your/app
PYTHON=/usr/local/bin/python
USER=user
start() {
cd $APP_PATH
zdaemon -C app.zdconf start
}
stop() {
cd $APP_PATH
zdaemon -C app.zdconf stop
}
check_status() {
cd $APP_PATH
zdaemon -C app.zdconf status
}
case "$1" in
start)
start
;;
stop)
stop
;;
status)
check_status
;;
restart)
stop
start
;;
*)
esac
exit 0
Where app.zdconf is the zdaemon configuration file.