Run as a Service

Start pi-webrtc when the device boots, and restart it if it stops. This page uses systemd.

1. Run PulseAudio as a system serviceCopy Anchor Link

Skip this step if you use --no-audio. A service has no user session, so PulseAudio must run for the whole system (reference).

1. Install it:

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   sudo apt install pulseaudio

2. Create /etc/systemd/system/pulseaudio.service:

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   [Unit]
   Description=PulseAudio Daemon
   After=rtkit-daemon.service systemd-udevd.service dbus.service
   
   [Service]
   Type=simple
   ExecStart=/usr/bin/pulseaudio --system --disallow-exit --disallow-module-loading
   Restart=always
   RestartSec=10
   
   [Install]
   WantedBy=multi-user.target

3. Stop clients from starting their own PulseAudio:

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   echo 'autospawn = no' | sudo tee -a /etc/pulse/client.conf > /dev/null

4. Give access, enable the service, and reboot:

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   sudo adduser root pulse-access
   sudo systemctl enable pulseaudio.service
   sudo reboot

2. Run pi-webrtc at bootCopy Anchor Link

1. Create /etc/systemd/system/pi-webrtc.service. Change WorkingDirectory and ExecStart to your own path and options:

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   [Unit]
   Description=pi-webrtc camera stream
   After=network-online.target pulseaudio.service
   
   [Service]
   Type=simple
   WorkingDirectory=/path/to
   ExecStart=/path/to/pi-webrtc --config=/path/to/config.yml
   Restart=always
   RestartSec=10
   
   [Install]
   WantedBy=multi-user.target

   A config file keeps ExecStart short. You can also put all the options on the ExecStart line.

2. Enable and start it:

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   sudo systemctl daemon-reload
   sudo systemctl enable pi-webrtc.service
   sudo systemctl start pi-webrtc.service

3. Check that it runs, and read its log:

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   systemctl status pi-webrtc.service
   journalctl -u pi-webrtc.service -f

Restart=always also helps with RTSP input: pi-webrtc exits when the RTSP stream changes its size or codec, and systemd starts it again.