Running Chia as a service has several benefits, the main one being this always ensures your node / farm is running. Example given: When your farm reboots unexpectedly the service will auto start your farm after boot. You can also use this to autostart only the node or harvester (change the startup script accordingly).

Use your preferred editor to create the following text file and save it (eg: startchia.sh)

Note: Replace {USERNAME} with the name of the user having Chia installed.

#!/bin/bash
/usr/bin/env bash -c 'cd /home/{USERNAME}/chia-blockchain && . ./activate && chia start farmer' 2>/dev/null

After saving use chmod +x startchia.sh to set the correct permissions. You can now execute the script to test if this starts up your farm: ./startchia.sh.

Create the Chia service: sudo nano /etc/systemd/system/chia.service and paste the following service:

Note: Replace {USERNAME} (3x) with the name of the user having Chia installed.

[Unit]
Description=Chia Service
[Service]
Type=forking
RemainAfterExit=no
User={username}
WorkingDirectory=/home/{username}/chia-blockchain
ExecStart=/home/{username}/startchia.sh
Restart=always
[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

You should now be able to see the service with sudo systemctl status chia:

$ sudo systemctl status chia
● chia.service - Chia Service
   Loaded: loaded (/etc/systemd/system/chia.service; disabled; vendor preset: enabled)
   Active: inactive (dead)

• Enable the service by running: sudo systemctl enable chia
• Start the service by running: sudo systemctl start chia

Running sudo systemctl status chia will now give the following output:

$ sudo systemctl status chia
[sudo] password for deploy:
● chia.service - Chia Service
   Loaded: loaded (/etc/systemd/system/chia.service; enabled; vendor preset: enabled)
   Active: active (running) since Mon 2021-09-06 13:41:42 CEST; 1min 41s ago
  Process: 492 ExecStart=/home/deploy/startfarm.sh (code=exited, status=0/SUCCESS)
 Main PID: 503 (chia_daemon)
    Tasks: 33 (limit: 4701)
   Memory: 3.3G
   CGroup: /system.slice/chia.service
           ├─ 503 chia_daemon
           ├─ 708 chia_harvester
           ├─ 709 chia_farmer
           ├─ 710 chia_full_node
           ├─ 711 chia_wallet
           ├─1263 chia_full_node
           └─1266 chia_full_node

Sep 06 13:41:37 debian systemd[1]: Starting Chia Service...
Sep 06 13:41:42 debian startfarm.sh[492]: Daemon not started yet
Sep 06 13:41:42 debian startfarm.sh[492]: Starting daemon
Sep 06 13:41:42 debian startfarm.sh[492]: chia_harvester: started
Sep 06 13:41:42 debian startfarm.sh[492]: chia_farmer: started
Sep 06 13:41:42 debian startfarm.sh[492]: chia_full_node: started
Sep 06 13:41:42 debian startfarm.sh[492]: chia_wallet: started
Sep 06 13:41:42 debian systemd[1]: Started Chia Service.

It should say “Active: active” and “enabled” in the Loaded section. When you reboot the system, Chia should automatically start up.