How may I run a user process at system startup that the user can set himself?

Question

I would like the users of the system to be able to setup processes that run at system startup that they can setup by themselves. How may I do it?

Can you elaborate? Do you actually mean when the system is powered on, or do you mean when the user logs in. Will the users have admin access to the system? Will the users be able to specify any process they want. If they aren't admins and can select any process they want are you willing to accept the risk that they may compromise the security of the system?

elijahbuck · Accepted Answer · 2010-03-26 02:20:57Z

up vote 1 down vote accepted

A user can specify a script to run on boot via cron. In their crontab (edited by executing 'crontab -e' when logged in), they would specify:

@reboot /home/username/path/to/script.sh

answered Mar 26 '10 at 2:20

elijahbuck
1412

Jimmy · Answer 2 · 2010-03-25 22:51:20Z

up vote 0 down vote

Ask them to add it to rc.local ?

edited Mar 25 '10 at 22:51

answered Mar 25 '10 at 22:34

Jimmy
71049

	That will not work as rc.local can only be edited by root – Eduardo Mar 25 '10 at 23:18
	on a regular system yes, but on his, users are encouraged to add there own processes at startup – Jimmy Mar 25 '10 at 23:24

sybreon · Answer 3 · 2010-03-26 00:30:41Z

up vote 0 down vote

Write your own rc.local script to check every user $HOME/rc.local. Then, use su to execute that command under the user account.

answered Mar 26 '10 at 0:30

sybreon
5,8131613

3 Answers