OK I'm new to Linux but know my way around a PC and various languages, however, I cannot figure out how to run something at boot (before user login)

I have tried a few things but nothing quite works so I thought i would ask here

Hardware beagle Bone Black with Debian wheezy

Thanks

P.S. Ideally I would like to run a python script

Steve

There are several boot levels depending on when you want your script to start.

this may help you a bit, as you might forget googling before asking..
http://www.cyberciti.biz/tips/linux-...-boots-up.html

Thanks yooy,

I did Google first, but Google can be confusing when you are not sure about the subject.

Steve

OK, I made a script in /etc/init.d/ called mystartup.sh (see below)
then "sudo chmod +x mystartup.sh" (whilst in /etc/init.d/ directory)
ran "sudo upate-rc.d mystartup.sh defaults 100"
Rebooted and nothing :-(

### BEGIN INIT INFO
# Provides: mystartup
# Required-Start: $all
# Required-Stop: $all
# Default-Start: 2 3 4 5
# Default-Stop: 0 1 6
# Short-Description: No comment yet
# Description: No comment yet
### END INIT INFO

#!/bin/bash
echo "something"

Hi,

as far as I can see, what you described should work. Can you confirm that there really is a sybolic link to your script in /etc/rc2.d/?
Eg
I'm assuming you didn't change the default run level. Also, if all your script does is echo a single string then you might miss seeing it during the boot. Pheraps you could make it do something else that is easier for you too see. Eg
This just creates a text file containing the date and time it was run. Then after the machine has booted you can look for the existence of the file /tmp/mystartup.txt

Evo2.

Only thing I see wrong is that the #!/bin/bash line must be first...

Thanks guys it now works, I moved #!bin/bash line and did date to file and file was there.

Now if I change the script to run a python script will it launch the script once at boot or for each terminal session I start?

Steve

P.S. Is there anything I should understand about running python scripts from shell scripts?

If it is in /etc/init.d and specified to be started, only once per boot. It will also be invoked at shutdown.

Brain skip.

Hi,

It will run once with the argument "start" each time runlevels 2-5 are entered and each time with the argument "stop" the system exists those same runlevels. The running of the script is not related to starting terminal sessions.

Evo2.