Shell Programming and Scripting

My main machine is set-up so that I configure the network details (IP etc) by command line. However I'm trying to create an bash script to run those commands upon system startup. Problem I have is that the commands require root access and I want it to be fully automatic.

Now I figure I need to add the bash script into system script so the system runs it as root but not sure how to do that? I though of maybe it adding it to a directory where other start-up scripts are run like /etc or /init.d but it can't be that simple can it?

On a side note I'm also trying to make it actually test that the connection is running before saying Network Is Up. I can do this with Ping, but how do I access the return so that it can report if the ping failed (and network is down).

The script is

Code:

#!/bin/bash
ifconfig eth0 inet 10.13.23.201
route add default gw 10.13.23.1
clear
echo "Network Is Up"

can you utilize sudo? or where are you trying to start it? you can create an init script that does it and make sure you do a beroot.

you can test ping and just get the output

Code:

ping something >/dev/null
if [ $? -gt 0 ]; then 
 echo "blah didn't work"
else
 echo "yay it worked"
fi

also just do >/dev/null instead of doing the clear..

---------- Post updated at 09:38 PM ---------- Previous update was at 09:38 PM ----------

can you utilize sudo? or where are you trying to start it? you can create an init script that does it and make sure you do a beroot.

you can test ping and just get the output

Code:

ping something >/dev/null
if [ $? -gt 0 ]; then 
 echo "blah didn't work"
else
 echo "yay it worked"
fi

also just do >/dev/null instead of doing the clear..

Can't really utilize sudo as that would still require the password to be entered at some point. I want it to start and run automatically (without any user input needed) upon system boot.

Why is >/dev/null better than simply clear?

I'll give the ping thing a try.

You could add your script to /etc/init.d and then add symlinks in runlevel directories (/etc/rc?.d). Or you could append your script to rc.local if your system uses one.

I've left out the ping section for the moment until I can get it working first.

I attempted to follow your advise agn but it doesn't seem to work. Here is what I got so far.

Named my script network-launch. Copied it to /etc/init.d.

I then used the command

Code:

ln -s /etc/init.d/network-launch ./K07network-launch

in both /etc/init.d/rc3.d and /etc/init.d/rc5.d (command line with networking and gnome with networking respectively). I tried also changing the start to S03 are a variety of other combinations of S and K with different numbers putting it before and after the K and S network symlink.

After some quick diagnostics I discovered that upon system boot the eth0 (my network card) was not being actived. So I changed the script to add the following line to the start

Code:

ifconfig eth0 up

And then re-run the symlink creation commands to create new links after remove the old ones.

However this is still not working. It doesn't appear the script is being run at all since even with the addition of the new line to bring eth0 up; eth0 is still not up after system boot.

Oh and I'm running OpenSuse 11.2 with network manager disabled (hence the use of command line).

First of all init.d scripts have a fairly specific format if you want the script to play well with the operating system. Here is an outline of the format. Look at other files in init.d to get a fuller understanding.

Code:

#! /bin/sh
#
# name of script
#
### BEGIN INIT INFO
# Provides: 
# Required-Start:
# Required-Stop:
# Default-Start: 2
# Default-Stop:
# Description: 
### END INIT INFO

. /etc/rc.status

rc_reset

case "$1" in
start)
    your code to start service
;;
stop)
    your code to stop service
;;
restart)
stop;
start;
;;
*)
echo "Usage: $0 {start|stop}"
exit 1
;;
esac
rc_exit

Next, you need to decide what run level your init script is started at and what run level your init script is stopped at. They may be different.

I suggest you start your script at runlevel 2. This means that you need symbolic link from your init.d script to a file named SxxYourScriptName in the rc2.d directory.