Problems with Raspian autostart via /etc/init.d - shell

Question

(Sorry for bad English, I'm German)
I'm trying (without success) to make my own program start automatically after booting (on a raspberry with raspian).
This is my script: (Note: You have to run this program with root privileges) (Note#2: There must be an empty file called "/home/testLog.txt" with write privileges for every user):
rm /etc/init.d/RMStart
echo "
#! /bin/sh
### BEGIN INIT INFO
# Provides: bla1
# Required-Start:
# Required-Stop:
# Default-Start: 2 3 4 5
# Default-Stop: 0 1 6
# Short-Description: bla2
# Description: bla3
### END INIT INFO
#Switch case for the first parameter
case \"\$1\" in
start)
echo \"Start\" >> /home/testLog.txt
echo runlevel >> /home/testLog.txt
;;
stop)
echo \"Stop\" >> /home/testLog.txt
echo runlevel >> /home/testLog.txt
;;
restart)
echo \"Restart\" >> /home/testLog.txt
echo runlevel >> /home/testLog.txt
;;
*)
echo \"something else\" >> /home/testLog.txt
;;
esac
exit 0
" >> /etc/init.d/RMStart
chmod +x /etc/init.d/RMStart
update-rc.d RMStart remove #Remove older versions of this program ... in theory
update-rc.d RMStart defaults #Install new version of this program ... in theory
I've rebooted the raspberry, but the file /home/testLog.txt is still empty.
However, if I run the command: "/etc/init.d/RMStart" or "/etc/init.d/RMStart start" there is a new entry in /home/testLog.txt.
I would be thankful if anyone knows why the file /home/testLog.txt is still empty and how I could fix that.
Update:
I've tried a new installation script:
#RMS install script
chmod +x botComp.sh
rm /home/pi/RMS
pkill RMS
./botComp.sh
cp RMS /home/pi
chmod +x /home/pi/RMS
rm /etc/init.d/startRMS
sudo echo "#!/bin/sh
### BEGIN INIT INFO
# Provides: fqew
# Required-Start:
# Required-Stop:
# Default-Start: 3 4 5
# Default-Stop: 0 1 6
# Short-Description: sfwef
# Description: gfewf
### END INIT INFO
# Actions
case \"\$1\" in
start)
# START
su pi sh -c \" /home/pi/RMS \"
;;
stop)
# STOP
;;
restart)
# RESTART
;;
esac
exit 0 " >> /etc/init.d/startRMS
chmod +x /etc/init.d/startRMS
update-rc.d startRMS remove
update-rc.d startRMS defaults
The only difference I can see is the name of the script (/etc/init.d/startRMS instead of /etc/init.d/RMStart).
The script works, RMS is running.
It's not really a problem, but the script outputs:
insserv: script RMStart: service F already provided!
insserv: script RMStart: service F already provided!
I've added the line system("runlevel >> /home/pi/runlevelLog.txt"); In the program (RMS) but the content of /home/pi/runlevelLog.txt is: "unknown".
Does RMS start at runlevel 3? How I can I verify this? (I think runlevel 3 is ideal, because RMS needs Network Connection.) Thank you for your help.

Answer 1

is /etc/init.d/RMStart definitely being executed on reboot? use ls -lu to check the last time the file was accessed, wait a minute before rebooting, and repeat the command once you're back up. If the access time hasn't moved on then your script isn't being run which would explain the empty file as your script looks Ok.
You should also double check that update-rc.d has created symbolic links to your script in the appropriate run level directives e.g. does /etc/rc2.d/RMStart exist?
Another sanity check would be running your script using the symbolic links in the above directory rather than from /etc/init.d e.g. does /etc/rc2.d/RMStart
generate output in /home/testLog.txt?
Let me know what you find and we'll take it from there.
EDIT: attempting to replicate..
Well I managed to find my PI; the good news is that neither of us are going mad because it worked perfectly first time as we both believed it should.
I took a copy of your file, and I wrote a quick script (x) to check the exit codes from update-rc.d just to make 100% sure it wasn't complaining about anything.
Hopefully you can follow what I did in the screen shot above - I replicated the steps you followed almost exactly with a bit of extra checking along the way. The script certainly works as designed when called directly.
I then rebooted immediately and checked testLog.txt as soon soon as the system was up. You can see two entries in the file which is expected behaviour as init would have run /etc/rc6.d/K01RMStart as the system went down for reboot, and /etc/rc5.d/S01RMStart as it came up again.
Unfortunately this doesn't help you much.....
The only significant differnce between our tests was that I ran everything as root rather than using sudo. This shouldn't make a difference but the next logical thing for you to try is probably copying my test exactly and seeing if it works for you?
Not that this should be at all significant but I'm running Raspbian 8 (kernel 4.1.13+).
EDIT2: awesome... great stuff. I'd still like to know what the problem was but the main thing in that it's working.
System V based distributions will usually start in either level 3 or level 5, the difference being that level 5 will start the GUI whereas level 3 will start in text mode, their default runlevel is controlled by a line in /etc/inittab.
Debian(Raspian) distros are a bit different - (https://www.debian.org/doc/debian-policy/ch-opersys.html#s-sysvinit). They make no distinction between run levels 2-5 and leave it up the user to configure them to suit their requirements by adding services using the mechanism that's been causing us pain for the last 24 hours. They always start in level 5 unless a "init=" kernel boot parameter has been set, which you can do either at boot time or with a tool like bum or raspi-config.
The command runlevel will tell you the current level on raspian.
You can change the runlevel on the fly with telinit new_runlevel if you need to, but whatever you do, don't set the default runlevel to 0 :-)