Quick deployment with GNU screenΒΆ

GNU screen is an handy tool which lets you create shell sessions detached from your current session. This means they will keep running even if you log out from the server. With it, you’re able to run your bot in the exact same way you’re running it in your development machine, without worrying about anything else.

Warning

This deployment method is not recommended for real-world deployments, because it doesn’t try to keep alive your bot if it crashes. It’s explained here because this method is useful if you just want to test how the bot runs on the server.

The first thing you need to do is to install the tool. On Debian/Ubuntu you can execute the following command (from root):

$ apt-get install screen

Instead, on CentOS/Fedora you need to run this command (from root):

$ yum install screen

Perfect, you now have GNU screen installed. You can create a new screen with the following command (replace screen_name with the name you want to assign to the screen):

$ screen -S screen_name

And you’re into your screen. Now, install botogram (if you didn’t do that before) and run your bot in it, as you would do on your local machine. You can exit the screen anytime by pressing CTRL+A and then D. If you want to resume it later, run the following command:

$ screen -x screen_name

Remember that if you don’t enable the multiuser feature, you can’t attach to screens of other users, so be sure to be logged in with the same account as you started the screen.