Hey all!

A new day, a new question

I have a script that i would like to run once, 3-5 minutes after the machine starts up. Is anacron my friend here?

Any idéas?

Thanks in advance guys!

/ravedog

No, it's better to use the at command.

I've never used the `at` tool, so it may be the right tool for the job, but I don't know.

But what about running the script (forking it off) directly from your rc.local init script (or your distro's equivalent init script) and inside your script, have a sleep loop of 300 seconds, after which it continues on to doing the actual good stuff?

Sasha

@ bathory: I never checked out the at command, ill have a look at it. ty! EDIT: Had a quick look at the "at" command, isnt that only for starting stuff at a specific time? inned to start it directly after boot up, whenever that might be

@ GrapefruiTgirl: i run ubuntu 9.04, i understand what your saying here. Still im a abit scared of messing up there since i dont really know how to use it, could you elaborate on it?

Thanks for your quick replys guys!

Sure,

I don't use ubuntu, so there's probably a more appropriate way to do it on that OS, though the principle is the same.

Either:

A) inside one of the rc.d folders (or inside any that are relevant to your desired runlevels where you want your script executed)
OR
B) within an existing script as mentioned,

You would put a line like:

The & symbol makes the script fork off into the background, while the parent script continues along its merry way.

And now, the first line of your special script, would read:

which would induce a 5 minute delay before the rest of the script was executed.

Again, there's a "prefect" way to do this on Ubuntu, which another Ubuntu user will have to explain to you, about how to induce scripts to execute the correct way at bootup in various runlevels, using the init.d folders.

Good luck!
Sasha

No, you can also tell at to start after a specified amount of time. In you case you can put the following in rc.local
and it will run your script 5 minutes after rc.local is ran. You can verify it with atq.

Hey that's cool

Thanks alot you guys. I really apreciate it!

br,

RavedoG

hey again!

I just tried to put:
at -f /path/randomprogram now + 2 minutes

Just to see that everything was kicking and a process was staring. And it actually wasn't, i could see it with atq but it never start. I tried with a script that created a new file as well and it never started either.

Is there some special way to place the line in rc.local or is it just to ram it in there in there at the last line?

thanks in advance!

/R

You can just put it in there. It will run with root privileges. OK? If not you can prefix it with the su command.

You have to make sure that the atd daemon is running.
You can put the line where you want. Just to be sure, use the full path to the at command:
Cheers

Hey again!

Thanks alot for all help, still cant get it to work though.

Last trys just to see was that i ran:

/usr/bin/at -f /usr/bin/cvlc now +2 min
sudo myusername /usr/bin/at -f /usr/bin/cvlc now +2 min

Both of the starts just fine when i run them in the shell, none of them work when put i rc.local.

Maby this isnt working in ubuntu dist?

br,

Ravedog

I guess you have to update your rc scripts, according to this.

Regards

Why would you need to have su or sudo in this case? Isn't the /path/to/your/script being called from rc.local which is run during the init process by the superuser, who would have full priviledges? So wouldn't the superuser execute /path/to/your/script at the appropriate time?

Yes it would and presumably that is not what is wanted.