System services#

Cinemate uses three system services for its operation.

Note if you have Cinemate already running, for example by running the preinstalled image file, anything you type will be interpreted by the Cinemate CLI only. In order to use these commands you have to start an SSH session and log in in a new shell.

cinemate-autostart.service#

Responsible for autostart of Cinemate on boot. By default, it is turned off on the downloadable image file.

Starting, stopping, enabling and disabling the service#

Go to the Cinemate folder:

cd cinemate

make install   # copy service file
make enable    # start on boot
make start     # launch now
make stop      # stop it
make status    # check status
make disable   # disable autostart
make clean     # remove the service

storage-automount.service#

Storage-automount is a systemd service that watches for removable drives and mounts them automatically. The accompanying Python script reacts to udev events and the CFE-HAT eject button so drives can be attached or detached safely.

It understands ext4, ntfs and exfat filesystems. Partitions labelled RAW are mounted at /media/RAW; any other label is mounted under /media/<LABEL> after sanitising the name. This applies to USB SSDs, NVMe drives and the CFE-HAT slot.

Note

On the image file, the storage-automount.service is activated by default.

To manually install and enable the service:

cd cinemate/services/storage-automount

sudo make install
sudo make enable

You can stop or disable it later with:

sudo make stop
sudo make disable

wifi-hotspot.service#

Wifi-hotspot keeps a small access point running with the help of NetworkManager so you can always reach the web interface. The SSID and password are read from /home/pi/cinemate/src/settings.json under system.wifi_hotspot.

Install and enable it with:

cd cinemate/services/wifi-hotspot

sudo make install
sudo make enable

As with storage-automount, you can stop or disable the hotspot with

` make stop make disable

Note

While evaluating, it might be practical to have the Pi connect to your local wifi for easy access (sudo raspi-config). Therefore, on the image file, the wifi-hotspot.service is not activated by default. Cinemate will still stream its web interface on the available netowrk. You can read more here