Create system user in Ubuntu and run a program as a service.

gistfile1.txt

# This gist shows how to create a system user with least required privileges to run soffice as a service.
# Can be used as a template to run any program as a service in debian based distros.
# Create system user with its own group, no shell, password disabled and login disabled.
# In this case the user needs a home directory which is going to be used by the program to write configurations to.
# So we specify /srv/soffice as home directory

sudo adduser --system --shell /bin/false --home /srv/soffice --disabled-password --disabled-login --group soffice

# Make a copy of the file /etc/init.d/skeleton nd rename it to /etc/init.d/soffice

sudo mv /etc/init.d/skeleton /etc/init.d/soffice

# Edit the file, so that the file looks like the following


#!/bin/sh
### BEGIN INIT INFO
# Provides:          libreoffice headless server
# Required-Start:    $remote_fs $syslog
# Required-Stop:     $remote_fs $syslog
# Default-Start:     2 3 4 5
# Default-Stop:      0 1 6
# Short-Description: LibreOffice Headless Server
# Description:       This file starts and stops the LibreOffice headless server, which listens on localhost (127.0.0.1) on port 8100
#
### END INIT INFO

# Author: Dibyendu Das


DESC="This file starts and stops the LibreOffice headless server, which listens on localhost (127.0.0.1) on port 8100"

case "$1" in
 start)
   su soffice -s /bin/bash -c "soffice --nologo --headless --nofirststartwizard --accept='socket,host=127.0.0.1,port=8100,tcpNoDelay=1;urp' &"
   echo "Started soffice headless server listening on port 8100"
   ;;
 stop)
   kill $(pidof soffice.bin | awk '{print $2}')
   sleep 5
   echo "Stopped soffice headless server"
   ;;
 restart)
   stop
   sleep 10
   start
   ;;
 *)
   echo "Usage: tomcat {start|stop|restart}" >&2
   exit 3
   ;;
esac

# Make the script executable:

sudo chmod a+x /etc/init.d/soffice

# Test the script by running it from the command line.

sudo /etc/init.d/soffice start
sudo /etc/init.d/soffice stop

# If all goes well then register the script as an init script:

sudo update-rc.d soffice defaults

# References
# [1] https://mobiarch.wordpress.com/2014/05/16/creating-an-init-script-in-ubuntu-14-04/