Unable to start a script as a service at boot using openvt (Pi 4)

Question

Before I describe the problem, I just want to mention that I was able to get this working on a Pi 3 under Raspbian Buster. For some reason it's not firing on a Pi 4 under the same OS.

I have a basic bash script with an infinite loop that I want to run at boot. In order to ensure the output of all commands within the script are directed to the TV connected to HDMI, I want to launch the script using openvt. The service appears to start without error but the script just never runs.

The script (we'll call it /home/pi/test.sh) looks like this:

#!/bin/bash
while true
do
 echo "Still alive"
 echo "Still alive" >> /tmp/output
 sleep 5
done

I created a service: /etc/systemd/system/test.service that looks as follows:

[Unit]
Description=Test Script
After=network.target
[Service]
WorkingDirectory=/home/pi
ExecStart=/bin/bash -c '/bin/openvt -c 1 -f -- /home/pi/test.sh'
[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

After enabling the service and manually starting it (or after a reboot), the /tmp/output file is never created and nothing outputs to the screen on HDMI.

systemctl status test.service outputs this:

●くろまる test.service - Test Script
 Loaded: loaded (/etc/systemd/system/test.service; enabled; vendor preset: enabled)
 Active: inactive (dead) since Fri 2019年12月27日 08:27:31 GMT; 2min 17s ago
 Process: 527 ExecStart=/bin/bash -c /bin/openvt -c 1 -f -- /home/pi/test.sh (code=exited, status=0/SUCCESS)
 Main PID: 527 (code=exited, status=0/SUCCESS)
Dec 27 08:27:31 raspberrypi systemd[1]: Started Test Script.
Dec 27 08:27:31 raspberrypi systemd[1]: test.service: Succeeded.

The output from journalctl --unit=test.service is as follows:

-- Logs begin at Fri 2019年12月27日 08:27:16 GMT, end at Fri 2019年12月27日 08:29:49 GMT. --
Dec 27 08:27:31 raspberrypi systemd[1]: Started Test Script.
Dec 27 08:27:31 raspberrypi systemd[1]: test.service: Succeeded.

If I manually run the command:

sudo /bin/bash -c '/bin/openvt -c 1 -f -- /home/pi/test.sh'

it runs fine and behaves as expected. Any reason it won't run as a service?

• Ingo: You have already asked the same question Issues with script run from /etc/rc.local
• wedwo: This question better identifies the issue which relates to openvt - I wasn't aware of that when I posted the previous question. If I were to have one or the other, the other can be deleted and this one left since it's a more accurate heading.

Answer 1

OK, the service works when running openvt with -s -w parameters:

ExecStart=/bin/openvt -s -w /home/pi/test.sh