I have an a.out
which I want to run when my BeagleBone boots up. It is actually a socket server which I want to start as soon as the BeagleBone powers up. I tried to put this in /etc/init.d
, but it didn't help. I wrote a shell script to run this executable but even that did not help.
What can I do to make a script run as soon as it boots up?
It took me quite some time to figure this out, but with lots of research, I finally found what I was looking for.
Compile the required code.
Create a bash script that will launch the code at boot/ startup
cd /usr/bin/
Type nano scriptname.sh
#!/bin/bash
/home/root/name_of_compiled_code
Save and grant execute permission
chmod u+x /usr/bin/scriptname.sh
Create the service
nano /lib/systemd/scriptname.service
Edit the above file as necessary to invoke the different functionalities like network. Enable these only if the code needs that particular service. Disable unwanted ones to decrease boot time.
[Unit]
Description=description of code
After=syslog.target network.target
[Service]
Type=simple
ExecStart=/usr/bin/scriptname.sh
[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target
Create a symbolic link to let the device know the location of the service.
cd /etc/systemd/system/
ln /lib/systemd/scriptname.service scriptname.service
Make systemd reload the configuration file, start the service immediately (helps to see if the service is functioning properly) and enable the unit files specified in the command line.
systemctl daemon-reload
systemctl start scriptname.service
systemctl enable scriptname.service
Restart BBB immediately to see if it runs as intended.
reboot
(All credit goes to http://mybeagleboneblackfindings.blogspot.com/2013/10/running-script-on-beaglebone-black-boot.html)
I followed the 7 steps to create a service but it doesn't work for me, then I put my shellscript commands to run my program, in the /etc/rc.local and it worked.
#!/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.
cd /home/my_program_directory
/home/my_program_directory/my_executable
exit 0