Automatically running a python script after boot

Question

After a lot of trial and failure to find a solution, i came acros adding the path to a executable script to /etc/profile the only problem is that the script only boots on the ssh sessions and not directly on the pi when i plug it in.

How may i fix it?

Answer 1

This works on Jessie if you want to start an app or script upon logging in to the desktop:

Add these lines in your ~/.profile:

(sleep 15 && leafpad) &

I'm using 'leafpad' here as an example; insert the path to the app or script you'd like to run.

Here's what this does:

• Sleeps 15 seconds then launches 'leafpad'
• The "&&" means "wait until the command before this finishes".
• The "&" means "do this in the background; continue with the rest of the script containing this line".
• The parentheses group things so the sleep AND the launch are both done in the background.

Because of the last "&" you can actually do several of these lines:

(sleep 15 && leafpad) &
(sleep 15 && cheese) &
(sleep 15 && epiphany) &

and they will all start a few seconds after you login to the desktop.

NOTE HOWEVER this will ALSO run this app when you ssh in to the RPi; if you are trying to run a desktop app, this may or may not be what you want. I'll look for away to NOT launch if you are connecting via ssh.

Answer 2

You can call the script inside /etc/rc.local.

If you have Raspbian 7 Wheezy, that should work out of the box. With Raspbian 8 Jessie, you might need to enabled systemd's rc-local.service (according to this forum posting).

• L. Hidalgo: I'm running Raspbian Jessie, How may i enable ´rc-local.service´ ? Calling the script from inside ´/etc/rc.local´ without enabling ´rc-local.service´ it doesn't run the script. Thanks a lot.
• Axel Beckert: See superuser.com/a/299506/389434 for such a file and its location.
• sir_ian: to acsess /etc/rc.local run
• sir_ian: sudo leafpad /etc/rc.local
• sir_ian: not sure why it split that up into 2 comments. :-)

Answer 3

As the script that i was trying to execute at everyboot of the pi needed another programs to boot before it execution, i solved the problem by adding a sleep time. The added lines to the /etc/profiles file looks like this:

sleep 1m
/path/to/myexecutablescript