For CentOS I created an init script to start it at boot time and shut it down for rebooting or power off. If you want to use this init script for your own machine please look through the script and change the necessary parameters, e.g. CASSANDRA_HOME.

Please also note that in the stop function it decommissions the node from the cluster. This is probably not what you want in production environments.

#!/bin/bash
# chkconfig: 2345 99 01
# description: Cassandra

. /etc/rc.d/init.d/functions

CASSANDRA_HOME=/opt/apache-cassandra-0.7.4
CASSANDRA_BIN=$CASSANDRA_HOME/bin/cassandra
CASSANDRA_NODETOOL=$CASSANDRA_HOME/bin/nodetool
CASSANDRA_LOG=$CASSANDRA_HOME/log/cassandra.log
CASSANDRA_PID=/var/run/cassandra.pid
CASSANDRA_LOCK=/var/lock/subsys/cassandra
PROGRAM="cassandra"

if [ ! -f $CASSANDRA_BIN ]; then
  echo "File not found: $CASSANDRA_BIN"
  exit 1
fi

RETVAL=0

start() {
  if [ -f $CASSANDRA_PID ] && checkpid `cat $CASSANDRA_PID`; then
    echo "Cassandra is already running."
    exit 0
  fi
  echo -n $"Starting $PROGRAM: "
  daemon $CASSANDRA_BIN -p $CASSANDRA_PID >> $CASSANDRA_LOG 2>&1
  usleep 500000
  RETVAL=$?
  if [ $RETVAL -eq 0 ]; then
    touch $CASSANDRA_LOCK
    echo_success
  else
    echo_failure
  fi
  echo
  return $RETVAL
}

stop() {
  if [ ! -f $CASSANDRA_PID ]; then
    echo "Cassandra is already stopped."
    exit 0
  fi
  echo -n $"Stopping $PROGRAM: "
  $CASSANDRA_NODETOOL -h 127.0.0.1 decommission
  if kill `cat $CASSANDRA_PID`; then
    RETVAL=0
    rm -f $CASSANDRA_LOCK
    echo_success
  else
    RETVAL=1
    echo_failure
  fi
  echo
  [ $RETVAL = 0 ]
}

status_fn() {
  if [ -f $CASSANDRA_PID ] && checkpid `cat $CASSANDRA_PID`; then
    echo "Cassandra is running."
    exit 0
  else
    echo "Cassandra is stopped."
    exit 1
  fi
}

case "$1" in
  start)
    start
    ;;
  stop)
    stop
    ;;
  status)
    status_fn
    ;;
  restart)
    stop
    start
    ;;
  *)
    echo $"Usage: $PROGRAM {start|stop|restart|status}"
    RETVAL=3
esac

exit $RETVAL

If all looks alright, name the script cassandra and place it in /etc/init.d/
After that run the following commands:

mkdir /opt/apache-cassandra-0.7.4/log
chmod +x /etc/init.d/cassandra
chkconfig --add cassandra
service cassandra start