Running as a Service

On Debian-based systems (including Raspberry Pi), the install script sets up the infrastructure to run AIS-catcher as a systemd background service that starts automatically at boot.

Note

In managed mode this is all handled for you — the service runs the dashboard and you never touch these files. This page is for stations configured manually.

Configuration Files

The background service reads two configuration files:

• /etc/AIS-catcher/config.json (JSON configuration)
• /etc/AIS-catcher/config.cmd (command line parameters)

The simplest approach is to edit /etc/AIS-catcher/config.cmd to capture your settings. Lines starting with # are considered comments and ignored. The file can be modified using a text editor, for example:

sudo nano /etc/AIS-catcher/config.cmd

Please note that config.json takes precedence over config.cmd.

Service Control

To start AIS-catcher as a background service:

sudo systemctl start ais-catcher.service

To view the status of the service:

sudo systemctl status ais-catcher.service

To ensure AIS-catcher starts automatically at boot time, enable the service with:

sudo systemctl enable ais-catcher.service