Starting Kodi automatically on Raspbian Jessie and Stretch

README.txt

So you were able to install Kodi via "sudo apt-get install kodi" but have no idea how to force it to autostart on boot?

You have tried all those googled solutions such as adding kodi-standalone to .bashrc, creating init.d script but nothing worked?

This is the right place to get the answer.

For some reason, the current version of Kodi doesnt provide 2 important files:
/etc/init.d/kodi
/etc/default/kodi

They are required to start kodi on boot. Also, for some unknown reason, I haven't found a single place in the whole internet, where those files would be available.

To fix the problem you need to create /etc/init.d/kodi first:
$ sudo touch /etc/init.d/kodi
The content for this file is provided in etc_init.d_kodi file attached to this gist. Use your favourite editor to paste the code into the file.

The second file to create is /etc/default/kodi. 
$ sudo touch /etc/default/kodi
Use the content from etc_default_kodi file attached to this gist:

We are almost done. The last thing is to is to make /etc/default/kodi executable:
$ sudo chmod a+x /etc/init.d/kodi

and add the init.d script to the startup scripts:
sudo update-rc.d kodi defaults
and thats it :)

etc_default_kodi

# Set this to 1 to enable startup
ENABLED=1

# The user to run Kodi as
USER=pi

# Adjust niceness of Kodi (decrease for higher priority)
NICE=-5

etc_init.d_kodi

#! /bin/sh
### BEGIN INIT INFO
# Provides:          kodi
# Required-Start:    $remote_fs $syslog
# Required-Stop:     $remote_fs $syslog
# Default-Start:     2 3 4 5
# Default-Stop:      0 1 6
# Short-Description: XBMC media centre
# Description:       Starts the XBMC media centre in standalone mode
### END INIT INFO

# Author: Michael Gorven <michael@gorven.za.net>

# PATH should only include /usr/* if it runs after the mountnfs.sh script
PATH=/sbin:/usr/sbin:/bin:/usr/bin
DESC="media centre"
NAME=kodi
STARTAS=/usr/bin/kodi-standalone
DAEMON=/bin/sh
DAEMON_ARGS=""
PIDFILE=/var/run/$NAME.pid
SCRIPTNAME=/etc/init.d/$NAME
GEOMETRY=/var/run/kodi.fbset

# Defaults
ENABLED=0
USER=kodi
NICE=0

# Exit if the package is not installed
[ -x "$STARTAS" ] || exit 0

# Read configuration variable file if it is present
[ -r /etc/default/$NAME ] && . /etc/default/$NAME

# Backwards compatibility with previous package name
[ -r /etc/default/xbmc ] && . /etc/default/xbmc

# Exit if service is not enabled
[ "$ENABLED" = "1" ] || exit 0

# Load the VERBOSE setting and other rcS variables
. /lib/init/vars.sh

# Define LSB log_* functions.
# Depend on lsb-base (>= 3.2-14) to ensure that this file is present
# and status_of_proc is working.
. /lib/lsb/init-functions

#
# Function that starts the daemon/service
#
do_start()
{
        fbset --show | grep geometry | cut -d' ' -f 6- > $GEOMETRY
        # Return
        #   0 if daemon has been started
        #   1 if daemon was already running
        #   2 if daemon could not be started
        start-stop-daemon --start --quiet --pidfile $PIDFILE --user $USER --exec $DAEMON --startas $STARTAS --test > /dev/null \
                || return 1
        start-stop-daemon --start --quiet --pidfile $PIDFILE --nicelevel $NICE --chuid $USER --background --make-pidfile --exec $DAEMON --startas $STARTAS -- \
                $DAEMON_ARGS \
                || return 2
        # Add code here, if necessary, that waits for the process to be ready
        # to handle requests from services started subsequently which depend
        # on this one.  As a last resort, sleep for some time.
        sleep 10
        start-stop-daemon --start --quiet --pidfile $PIDFILE --user $USER --exec $DAEMON --startas $STARTAS --test > /dev/null \
                || return 2
}

#
# Function that stops the daemon/service
#
do_stop()
{
        # Return
        #   0 if daemon has been stopped
        #   1 if daemon was already stopped
        #   2 if daemon could not be stopped
        #   other if a failure occurred
        start-stop-daemon --stop --quiet --retry=TERM/30/KILL/5 --pidfile $PIDFILE --user $USER --exec $DAEMON --startas $STARTAS

        # Kodi doesn't actually handle signals, so we have to send an RPC request to ask it to exit
        if [ -x /usr/bin/wget ]; then
                wget --post-data '{"jsonrpc": "2.0", "method": "Application.Quit", "params": [], "id": 0}' --header 'Content-Type: application/json' -O /dev/null --quiet http://localhost:8080/jsonrpc
        fi
        # Wait for children to finish too if this is a daemon that forks
        # and if the daemon is only ever run from this initscript.
        # If the above conditions are not satisfied then add some other code
        # that waits for the process to drop all resources that could be
        # needed by services started subsequently.  A last resort is to
        # sleep for some time.
        start-stop-daemon --stop --quiet --retry=0/30/KILL/5 --user $USER --name $NAME.bin
        RETVAL="$?"
        [ "$RETVAL" = 2 ] && return 2

        # Many daemons don't delete their pidfiles when they exit.
        rm -f $PIDFILE

        # Try to fix the display
        VT="$(fgconsole)"
        if [ "$VT" ]; then
                chvt 7
                chvt "$VT"
        fi

        if [ -e $GEOMETRY ]; then
                fbset --geometry $(cat $GEOMETRY)
        fi

        return "$RETVAL"
}

case "$1" in
  start)
        [ "$VERBOSE" != no ] && log_daemon_msg "Starting $DESC" "$NAME"
        do_start
        case "$?" in
                0|1) [ "$VERBOSE" != no ] && log_end_msg 0 ;;
                2) [ "$VERBOSE" != no ] && log_end_msg 1 ;;
        esac
        ;;
  stop)
        [ "$VERBOSE" != no ] && log_daemon_msg "Stopping $DESC" "$NAME"
        do_stop
        case "$?" in
                0|1) [ "$VERBOSE" != no ] && log_end_msg 0 ;;
                2) [ "$VERBOSE" != no ] && log_end_msg 1 ;;
        esac
        ;;
  status)
        status_of_proc "$DAEMON" "$NAME" && exit 0 || exit $?
        ;;
  restart|force-reload)
        #
        # If the "reload" option is implemented then remove the
        # 'force-reload' alias
        #
        log_daemon_msg "Restarting $DESC" "$NAME"
        do_stop
        case "$?" in
          0|1)
                do_start
                case "$?" in
                        0) log_end_msg 0 ;;
                        1) log_end_msg 1 ;; # Old process is still running
                        *) log_end_msg 1 ;; # Failed to start
                esac
                ;;
          *)
                # Failed to stop
                log_end_msg 1
                ;;
        esac
        ;;
  *)
        echo "Usage: $SCRIPTNAME {start|stop|status|restart|force-reload}" >&2
        exit 3
        ;;
esac

:

I went with the systemd approach, which worked.

[Unit]
Description = Kodi Media Center

# if you don't need the MySQL DB backend, this should be sufficient
After = systemd-user-sessions.service network.target sound.target

# if you need the MySQL DB backend, use this block instead of the previous
# After = systemd-user-sessions.service network.target sound.target mysql.service
# Wants = mysql.service

[Service]
User = kodi
Group = kodi
Type = simple
ExecStart = /usr/bin/kodi-standalone
Restart = always
RestartSec = 15

[Install]
WantedBy = multi-user.target

Then, I created the kodi user.

sudo adduser --disabled-password --gecos "User to run Kodi Media Center" kodi
sudo adduser kodi audio
sudo adduser kodi video
sudo adduser kodi plugdev
sudo adduser kodi input

And, finally, started the service.

sudo systemctl daemon-reload
sudo systemctl enable kodi.service
sudo systemctl start kodi.service

It now comes up at boot. BubbleUPNP works. Yay.