Making the server a systemd service

Systemd is a service management system available in most modern Linux distributions. If you create a Petals service inside systemd, it will allow you to:

• Start, stop, and restart the server using a single command
• Make the server start automatically after reboot
• Save all logs from the server

Here are the instructions for making the Petals server a systemd service:

1. Configure systemd to keep shared memory files when a user logs out.

   Open /etc/systemd/logind.conf, find the section [Login] and add the line RemoveIPC=no. Then, reboot your machine.

2. Create the Petals service.

   Create the file /etc/systemd/system/petals.service with the following contents:

   [Unit]
   Description=Petals
   After=network.target
   StartLimitIntervalSec=0
   
   [Service]
   Type=simple
   Restart=always
   RestartSec=1
   User=user
   Environment=PYTORCH_CUDA_ALLOC_CONF=max_split_size_mb:128
   Environment=CUDA_VISIBLE_DEVICES=0
   ExecStart=python -m petals.cli.run_server petals-team/StableBeluga2
   
   [Install]
   WantedBy=multi-user.target

   Here, replace python with the path of the Python 3.7+ interpreter you'd like to use to run Petals. This should be the interpreter where you have previously installed Petals with the python -m pip install petals command. Next, replace user from the line User=user with the name of a Linux user you'd like to use for running Petals. You can use your own user or create a separate one specifically for Petals to isolate the server from your personal files.

3. Run this to start the server and check its status:

   sudo systemctl start petals
   sudo systemctl status petals

4. You can check the Petals logs at any time by running:

   sudo journalctl -u petals -f

5. If everything goes fine, you can make Petals to be started after reboot:

   sudo systemctl enable petals

6. If you'd ever need to pause Petals and use your GPU for something else, run this:

   sudo systemctl stop petals
   # The GPU is free, do whatever you want...
   
   # Once you're done
   sudo systemctl start petals