Print statements at boot and shut-down

For some use cases it may be very handy to have a concise log file with all the times when your Raspberry Pi booted up and shut down. Here we will do this using Python and boot and shutdown services.

Add print statement at boot
Add print statement at shutdown
Testing

Add print statement at boot

Create the file printatboot.py with the following code:

#!/usr/bin/python3

import logging

logging.basicConfig(
	filename = '/home/pi/pistatus.log',
	level = logging.DEBUG,
	format = '%(asctime)s %(message)s',
	datefmt = '%d/%m/%Y %H:%M:%S')

logging.info('Raspberry Pi power on')

Now make the file run automatically at boot:

sudo nano /etc/rc.local

Add the following just before the exit 0 statement:

python3 /home/pi/printatboot.py &

Add print statement at shutdown

Now similarly for shutdown, create the file printatshutdown.py:

#!/usr/bin/python3

import logging

logging.basicConfig(
	filename = '/home/pi/pistatus.log',
	level = logging.DEBUG,
	format = '%(asctime)s %(message)s',
	datefmt = '%d/%m/%Y %H:%M:%S')

logging.info('Raspberry Pi power off')

We now have to create a system shutdown service as there doesn’t exist one yet like the startup service of rc.local:

sudo nano /etc/systemd/system/rcshutdown.service

Add the text:

[Unit]
Description=/etc/rc.shutdown
Before=shutdown.target

[Service]
ExecStart=/bin/true
ExecStop=/etc/rc.shutdown
RemainAfterExit=yes

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

Now enable the service:

sudo systemctl enable rcshutdown.service

and create the file /etc/rc.shutdown, which will be similar like the /etc/rc.local file:

sudo nano /etc/rc.shutdown

Add the following text:

#!/bin/bash
#
# rc.shutdown
#

python3 /home/pi/printatshutdown.py

exit 0

Now make the script executable:

sudo chmod a+x /etc/rc.shutdown

Testing

Start the shutdown service for the first boot (it should run automatically from next boot):

sudo systemctl start rcshut.service

and reboot your Raspberry Pi:

sudo shutdown -r now

After booting up, check the status log:

nano /home/pi/pistatus.log

It should look like the following:

10/02/2021 11:13:19 Raspberry Pi power on
10/02/2021 11:13:49 Raspberry Pi power off

Print statements at boot and shut-down

Table of contents

Add print statement at boot

Add print statement at shutdown

Testing