Thread: Run application at startup

The general concept is to use an "init script".* These are for the unix shell (/bin/sh) and go into a directory in /etc (usually, /etc/init.d). These are run by init, which is the first process started by the kernel. Since linux distros are heterogeneous, there are various forms of init daemon; traditionally, the services managed by init scripts are organized into "run levels" (for single user, multi-user, networked, gui) by using symlinks from a set of directories in /etc/rc.d. While not all distos still use that exact system, all of the ones that I have ever seen do use init scripts, and those scripts have the same basic structure.

http://www.linux.com/learn/tutorials...h-init-scripts

Ie, the form of the script in that tutorial is what you want, but

1) Sourcing /etc/init.d/functions should be mostly portable, but it is not necessary.

2) Don't count on specifics with regard to the nature of runlevels etc. Fortunately, these are not referenced in the script itself anyway.

Some distros elaborate on this model, eg, by incorporating prerequisites directly into the script, but again, AFAIK this should not be necessary as the idea is to respect the basic common form.

My advice to you is to write the script, incorporating the start, stop, restart, and status functions, and then simply distribute it with your package and include some documentation to let the user know it is available. Since there is no universal system WRT exactly how the scripts get used, trying to automate the install will just lead to "works some places, doesn't work others".

OTOH, you could test to see if the system uses a SysV like /etc/rc.d with runlevels, and auto-install if that is available, since it is the most common. I presume starting a mono application will rely on various services already existing, so most likely you will want to have the script start late, after the system goes online -- and only in runlevels where networking is started. Unfortunately, that is complicated by the fact that startup services are user configurable, so again, my advice is to just provide the script and let the user install it appropriately.

* if you google, don't confuse this with:
http://linux.about.com/library/cmd/b...initscript.htm
Which is obscure, so some people may use the term "initscript(s)" but most likely are not referring to that.