Terminal command will not execute after boot

Question

I have a raspberry pi which I want to turn into a web server. I have installed everything needed. Now my problem: I am using ngrok to get the server online. To do this all I have to do is running the following command in the terminal:

/home/pi/Downloads/ngrok http -subdomain=asimpledomain 80

Now I want this command to be executed on startup so I changed my rc.local file to this:

#!/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.
/home/pi/Downloads/ngrok http -subdomain=asimpledomain 80 &
exit 0

I have saved the files and rebooted but after booting up I found out that this is not working. Any ideas?

• joan: I have no idea. It might help if you say in your post what you expected to happen and how you know it's not working. As a side question why not just do sudo apt-get install apache2?
• cssGEEK: apache2 is instaleed.What i expect is when pi has boot an ngrok tunnel to be created
• joan: As a matter of interest did you install ngrok from the Raspbian repository? I'd have assumed it would handle the initialisation automatically.
• cssGEEK: how can i install ngrok from repo?
• joan: apt-cache search ngrok shows ngrok-client and ngrok-server packages. Install the one(s) you want with sudo apt-get install ngrok-client and/or sudo apt-get install ngrok-server.

Answer 1

You may want to try running a test to see if it throws errors without a reboot:

sudo service rc.local start

then check it from there. You may have to run it as a specific user:

sudo -u pi /home/pi/Downloads/ngrok http -subdomain=asimpledomain 80 & 

• IgorGanapolsky: So if service rc.local start doesn't show an error, then it should execute correctly upon every boot of pi? Ngrok doesn't start for me.

Answer 2

Have you tried exporting the path variables in the bashrc files?

My best guess is you do the following:

1. put the ngrokdirectory in a bin/ directory in /home/pi

   mkdir bin
   

2. give it executable mode

   sudo chmod +x bin/
   

3. change path variables in .bashrc

   sudo nano ~/.bashrc
   # at the end of the file
   export PATH=$PATH:bin/
   

4. press CTRL+O and CTRL+X and then

   source ~/.bashrc
   

and maybe try rebooting it again.

I somehow think that maybe there might be problems with path variable settings.

Answer 3

Have to tried accessing website without reboot and without modifying rc.local?

I suppose you can opt for crontab instead of rc.local..

crontab entry via crontab -e:

@reboot /home/pi/Downloads/ngrok http -subdomain=asimpledomain 80 & > /dev/null 2>&1

• cssGEEK: what is > /dev/null 2>&1?
• nageswar rao: refer this link stackoverflow.com/a/10508862/4870299
• cssGEEK: I tried this but it is not working
• nageswar rao: Do you have paid account in ngrok? AFAIK ngrok allows own subdomain in paid account. For free account, try this command /home/pi/Downloads/ngrok tcp 80 See active tunnels with this command (if ngrok running in backgound) curl localhost:4040/api/tunnels
• cssGEEK: I don't need a paid account.If I try this from a terminal it works