I like my etherpad to run in a screen so I can jump in and out:
I know it’s messy but it’s all I have. I recommend not using this on a box running anything other than etherpad. I paste this to /etc/init.d/etherpad and chmod it
/etc/init.d/nrpe start killall java -9 killall soffice.bin /usr/bin/soffice -headless -nofirststartwizard -accept="socket,host=localhost,port=8100;urp;StarOffice.Service" & cd /usr/local/etherpad/trunk/etherpad screen bin/run-local.sh