How to run a shell script at startup

Question

On an Amazon S3 Linux instance  I have two scripts called start my app and stop my app which start and stop forever  which in turn runs my Node js application   I use these scripts to manually start and stop my Node js application  So far so good   My problem  I also want to set it up such that start my app is run whenever the system boots up  I know that I need to add a file inside init d and I know how to symlink it to the proper directory within rc d  but I can t figure out what actually needs to go inside the file that I place in init d  I m thinking it should be just one line  like  start my app  but that hasn t been working for me

User · Answer

Here is a simpler method   First  write a shell script and save it a  sh here is an example     bin bash Icoff   home akbar keyboardONOFF icon Dt6hQ png  id 13 fconfig   keyboard  echo  disabled   gt   fconfig xinput float  id notify-send -i  Icoff  Internal Keyboard disabled     this script will disable the internal keyboard at startup   Second  Open the application   Startup Application Preferences    enter image description here  enter image description here  Third  click Add  fourth  in the NAME section give a name  fifth  In the command section browse to your  sh   sixth  edit your command section to    bash  lt space gt  path to file  lt filename gt  sh  lt space gt  --start   seventh  click Add  Thats it  Finished   Now confirm by rebooting your pc   cheers

User · Answer

Create your own  init executable  This is not what you want  but it is fun   Just pick an arbitrary executable file  even a shell script  and boot the kernel with the command line parameter   init  path to myinit   Towards the end of boot  the Linux kernel runs the first userspace executable at the given path   Several projects provide popular init executables used by major distros  e g  systemd  and in most distros init will fork a bunch of processes used in normal system operation   But we can hijack  init it to run our own minimal scripts to better understand our system   Here is a minimal reproducible setup  https   github com cirosantilli linux-kernel-module-cheat tree f96d4d55c9caa7c0862991025e1291c48c33e3d9 README md custom-init

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Enter cron using sudo   sudo crontab -e  Add a command to run upon start up  in this case a script    reboot sh  home user test sh  Save   Press ESC then  x to save and exit  or hit ESC then ZZ  that s shift zz   Test Test Test    Run your test script without cron to make sure it actually works  Make sure you saved your command in cron  use sudo crontab -e Reboot the server to confirm it all works sudo  reboot

User · Answer

Set a crontab for this    crontab -e  reboot   home user test sh   after every startup it will run the test script

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I refered to this blog  always sound a good choice  https   blog xyzio com 2016 06 14 setting-up-a-golang-website-to-autorun-on-ubuntu-using-systemd   vim  lib systemd system gosite service  Description A simple go website ConditionPathExists  home user bin gosite   Service  Restart always RestartSec 3 ExecStart  home user bin gosite   Install  WantedBy multi-user target    systemctl enable gosite service

User · Answer

In the file you put in  etc init d  you have to set it executable with   chmod  x  etc init d start my app   Thanks to  meetamit  if this does not run you have to create a symlink to  etc rc d   ln -s  etc init d start my app  etc rc d    Please note that on latest Debian  this will not work as your script have to be LSB compliant  provide  at least  the following actions  start  stop  restart  force-reload  and status   https   wiki debian org LSBInitScripts  As a note  you should put the absolute path of your script instead of a relative one  it may solves unexpected issues    var myscripts start my app   And don t forget to add on top of that file       bin sh

User · Answer

A simple approach is to add a line in  etc rc local     PATH TO MY APP  amp    or if you want to run the command as a special user    su - USER FOOBAR -c  PATH TO MY APP  amp     the trailing ampersand backgrounds the process and allows the rc local to continue executing   If you want a full init script  debian distro have a template file  so    cp  etc init d skeleton  etc init d your app   and adapt it a bit

User · Answer

Painless  easiest and the most universal method is simply executing it with   bash profile or   profile  if you don t have bash profile file    Just add the execution command at the bottom of that file and it will be executed when system started    I have this one at the bottom an example    Desktop sound fixer sh

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Another option is to have an  reboot command in your crontab   Not every version of cron supports this  but if your instance is based on the Amazon Linux AMI then it will work

User · Answer

This simple solution worked for me on an Amazon Linux instance running CentOS   Edit your  etc rc d rc local file and put the command there  It is mentioned in this file that it will be executed after all other init scripts  So be careful in that regards  This is how the file looks for me currently   Last line is the name of my script

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In Lubuntu I had to deal with the opposite situation  Skype start running after booting and I found in    config autostart  the file skypeforlinux desktop  The content of the file is as follows     Desktop Entry  Name Skype for Linux Comment Skype Internet Telephony Exec  usr bin skypeforlinux Icon skypeforlinux Terminal false Type Application StartupNotify false X-GNOME-Autostart-enabled true   Deleting this file helped me

User · Answer

This is the way I do it on Red Hat Linux systems   Put your script in  etc init d  owned by root and executable  At the top of the script  you can give a directive for chkconfig  Example  the following script is used to start a Java application as user oracle   The name of the script is  etc init d apex     bin bash   chkconfig  345 99 10   Description  auto start apex listener   case   1  in   start      su - oracle -c  cd  opt apex   java -jar apex war  gt  logs apex log 2 gt logs apex error log  amp       stop      echo  put something to shutdown or kill the process here    esac   This says that the script must run at levels 3  4  and 5  and the priority for start stop is 99 and 10   Then  as user root you can use chkconfig to enable or disable the script at startup   chkconfig --list apex chkconfig --add apex   And you can use service start stop apex

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Working with Python nbsp 3 microservices or shell  using Ubuntu nbsp Server nbsp 18 04  Bionic Beaver  or Ubuntu nbsp 19 10  Eoan Ermine  or Ubuntu nbsp 18 10  Cosmic Cuttlefish  I always do like these steps  and it worked always too    Creating a microservice called p example  brain microservice1 service  in my case     nano  lib systemd system brain microservice1 service  Inside this new service that you are in    Unit  Description brain microservice 1 After multi-user target   Service  Type simple ExecStart  usr bin python3 7  root scriptsPython RUN SERVICES microservices     microservice 1 py -k start -DFOREGROUND ExecStop  usr bin python3 7  root scriptsPython RUN SERVICES microservices microservice 1 py -k graceful-stop ExecReload  usr bin python3 7  root scriptsPython RUN SERVICES microservices microservice 1 py -k graceful PrivateTmp true LimitNOFILE infinity KillMode mixed Restart on-failure RestartSec 5s   Install  WantedBy multi-user target  Give the permissions     chmod -X  lib systemd system brain microservice    chmod -R 775  lib systemd system brain microservice   Give the execution permission then     systemctl daemon-reload  Enable then  this will make then always start on startup    systemctl enable brain microservice1 service  Then you can test it     sudo reboot now Finish   SUCCESS     This can be done with the same body script to run shell  react     database startup script     any kind os code     hope this help u

User · Answer

For Debian 9 see https   askubuntu com questions 228304 how-do-i-run-a-script-at-start-up  It is helped me  Short version for Debian 9  add commands  as root  to  etc rc local   path to file filename sh     exit 1     Added by me exit 0   Probably   path to file filename sh should be executable  I think so

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The absolute easiest method if all you want to run is a simple script   or anything  is if you have a gui to use system   preferences  then startup apps   just browse to the script you want and there you go    make script executable

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For some people  this will work   You could simply add the following command into System  rarr  Preferences  rarr  Startup Applications   bash  full path to your script sh

User · Answer

Just have a line added to your crontab    Make sure the file is executable   chmod  x  path to you file your file   To edit crontab file   crontab -e   Line you have to add    reboot   path to you file your file   That simple

User · Answer

Edit the rc local file using nano or gedit editor and add your scripts in it  File path could be  etc rc local or  etc rc d rc local  sudo nano  etc rc local  This is the edit     bin sh  path-to-your-script your-scipt-name sh  once done press ctrl o to update  pressEnter then ctrl x  Make the file executable  sudo chmod 755  etc rc local  Then initiate the rc-local service to run script during boot  sudo systemctl start rc-local

User · Answer

Many answers on starting something at boot  but often you want to start it just a little later  because your script depends on e g  networking  Use at to just add this delay  e g   at now   1 min -f  path yourscript  You may add this in  etc rc local  but also in cron like    crontab -e  reboot at now   1 min -f  path yourscript  Isn t it fun to combine cron and at  Info is in the man page man at  As for the comments that  reboot may not be widely supported  just try it  I found out that  etc rc local has become obsolete on distros that support systemd  such as ubuntu and raspbian

User · Answer

You can do it    chmod  x PATH TO YOUR SCRIPT start my app    then use this command   update-rc d start my app defaults 100   Please see this page on Cyberciti

User · Answer

Add your script to  etc init d  directory Update your rc run-levels    update-rc d myScript sh defaults NN where NN is the order in which it should be executed  99 for example will mean it would be run after 98 and before 100

[linux] How to run a shell script at startup

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