Script autostart at boot time on Linux

(Just because I came across this several times during the last weeks being asked by Linux newbees. )

If you want to have a script, a command or a program run at autostart on Linux, put it into /etc/rc.local. On my Ubuntu or Mint systems this file has the following content:

#!/bin/sh -e                                                                        

#                                                                                  

# rc.local                                                                          

#                                                                                  

# This script is executed at the end of each multiuser runlevel.                    

# Make sure that the script will “exit 0″ on success or any other                  

# value on error.                                                                  

#                                                                                  

# In order to enable or disable this script just change the execution              

# bits.                                                                            

#                                                                                  

# By default this script does nothing.                                              

                                                                                   

exit 0   

If you add a line like echo “`date`: Hello, dude, I am just booting.” > /tmp/bootlog here, the next time your system starts you will find a timestamp followed by the nice greeting inside the file /tmp.bootlog:

Thu Dec  8 16:06:35 CET 2011: Hello, dude, I am just booting.

Mind that this only works on systems that (perhaps you’ll use locate rc.local) to check that) have the relevant init script /etc/init.d/rc.local on their hard drive. My Ubuntu/Mint systems have the test following test included:

do_start() {

        if [ -x /etc/rc.local ]; then

                [ "$VERBOSE" != no ] && log_begin_msg “Running local boot 

scripts (/etc/rc.local)”

                /etc/rc.local

                ES=$?

                [ "$VERBOSE" != no ] && log_end_msg $ES

                return $ES

        fi

}

Basically, this test makes sure that it is executed if it exists. If you have symbolic links like these:

/etc/rc2.d/S99rc.local                                                                                                                       

/etc/rc3.d/S99rc.local                                                                                                                       

/etc/rc4.d/S99rc.local                                                                                                                       

/etc/rc5.d/S99rc.local

then this script will be run always on the start of runlevels 2,3,4 and 5. You can change that behaviour with the command update-rc.d (a very good manpage is available).

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