Upstart – Is There Any GUI Tool for Upstart

Yeah Upstart is a pretty good option for this. Just create a new file:

sudoedit /etc/init/my-jetty-jar.conf

You can change the filename to whatever you like but then stick this in it:

description     "Run my jetty jar"

# no start option as you might not want it to auto-start
# This might not be supported - you might need a: start on runlevel [3]
stop on runlevel [!2345]

# if you want it to automatically restart if it crashes, leave the next line in
respawn

script
    cd /usr/share/jetty
    su -c "/usb/bin/java -jar /path/to/foo.jar" nobody
end script

Some notes about that, I'm suing to nobody for security. You might need it to su into another account but it's probably not recommended that it runs as root.

The problem you are facing is that when upstart (or systemd, or the scripts in /etc/rc.d/) are run, there is normally no graphic service ("the X server") running.

Moreover, the availability of the graphic subsystem in Unix is strictly bond to the concept that a user has done a graphic login, and just this user has the right to use the graphic environment. It is customary NOT to start a graphic subsytem for root --- and the upstart scripts are run by root.

To automatically start a graphic application at the start of the system, my approach would be:

1. create a user for this purpose. Set it up so that its session will autostart.
   

2. set up a startup application for this user with the program you want; choose "startup application" in the dash:

3. for restarting the application when it exits/crashes, you can simply embed it in a script:

        #!/bin/bash
        #
        while true; do 
             /full/path/to/start_myapp.sh    # NO background (&)!
             # if we land here it exited
             sleep 5
        done
   

If you use this script, it is really important that the command start_myapp.sh should not launch the application in background. Otherwise, more complex strategies are required to auto-restart...

Notice that you can use your normal user in parallel too; just choose "switch user" from the panel (adapt to your flavor of Ubuntu) and you will have another graphical login screen; you can switch back-an-forth using CTRL-ALT-F7 and CTRL-ALT-F8...