Manage viam-server

Run as a system service

After installation, the viam-server AppImage binary will be located at /usr/local/bin/viam-server, and a systemd service file will be placed at /etc/systemd/system/viam-server.service. By default, viam-server is configured to start when the machine boots.

Running viam-server as a system service is the recommended method for Linux.

You can use the following commands to manage viam-server when installed as a system service. These commands require that you store your configuration file at /etc/viam.json.

Start

sudo systemctl start viam-server

Stop

sudo systemctl stop viam-server

Restart

sudo systemctl restart viam-server

Enable (start automatically with system boot, default)

sudo systemctl enable viam-server

Disable (do not start automatically with system boot)

sudo systemctl disable viam-server

Run from the command line

When running viam-server on the command line, you can use the following commands to manage the process. If viam-server is already running as a system service, be sure to stop the service first before using these commands.

Start

Run the following on the command line to start viam-server, providing the path to your own configuration file:

sudo viam-server -config /path/to/my/config.json

If you followed the Installation Guide, your robot’s configuration file is available at /etc/viam.json. You can provide this path in the above command, or move the configuration file to a desired location and change the path in this command accordingly. If you don’t yet have a configuration file, you can build a new configuration file.

Note that on a Raspberry Pi, viam-server must always run as root (using sudo) in order to access the DMA subsystem for GPIO. When running viam-server from your home directory on a Linux computer, you do not need to use sudo.

Stop

Press Ctrl + C on your keyboard within the terminal session where you are running viam-server to stop it.

viam-server is distributed for Linux as an AppImage, and includes a built-in self-update feature. When you run viam-server as a service on Linux, it will check for updates automatically on launch, and update itself if a newer version is detected.

The automatic update behavior of viam-server should meet the needs of most deployments, but if you need to manually force an update, you can do so with the --aix-update flag:

sudo viam-server --aix-update

Disable Service-based Updates

If you want to disable viam-server from automatically checking for updates each time you launch it, comment out the ExecStartPre line from your /etc/systemd/system/viam-server.service service file (by prepending with a # character), so that it matches the following:

# ExecStartPre=-/usr/local/bin/viam-server --aix-update

Then, reload the service file with the following command:

sudo systemctl daemon-reload

To resume automatic update checking, delete the leading # character once more, and run sudo systemctl daemon-reload again.

As a system service

If you are running viam-server as a system service, run the following command to view log messages:

sudo journalctl --unit=viam-server

Use the arrow keys to page vertically or horizontally through the log messages.

You can also “tail” the logs, viewing new messages as they come in with:

sudo journalctl -f --unit=viam-server

Use the q key to stop following the logs.

You can also view log messages specific to viam-server in the syslog with the following command:

grep viam-server /var/log/syslog

From the command line

If you are running viam-server on the command line, log messages are written to standard out (stdout) in the same terminal session you started viam-server in.

You can also view log messages specific to viam-server in the syslog with the following command:

grep viam-server /var/log/syslog