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I have these two commands that I need to manually run every time after login:

autossh -M 2000 -N -f -q -D user@domain.com


sudo mkdir /media/C
sudo mount /dev/sda2 /media/C

I'd like to make them automatically run every time I boot and login to my computer. I'm currently using 10.04LTS.

BTW, I only vaguely know what init.d or runlevel mean. But I still prefer to know a command-line based way to achieve this, not a fancy GUI way. Also, the autossh will only succeed after Ubuntu automatically detect and connect to my network, so should we let it retry infinitely until successfully executed?

Thank you!

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Can you update your question to explain why you're mounting manually instead of adding it to /etc/fstab? –  Jo-Erlend Schinstad Feb 26 '12 at 5:57
@Jo-ErlendSchinstad: I don't have any particular reason. fstab seems a viable option but I don't quite understand how to do it. –  Covi Feb 26 '12 at 8:39
add startup app with command: autossh -M 2000 -N -f -q -D user@domain.com && sudo mkdir /media/C && sudo mount /dev/sda2 /media/C –  geoh May 4 '12 at 12:19
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2 Answers

Adding the autossh Command

  1. On the panel select System --> Preferences --> Startup Applications.
  2. Under the Startup Programs tab select the Add button.
  3. Choose any Name you want and paste in your command (the Comment is optional)
  4. Click the Add button.

Note for newer versions of Ubuntu

You can find this application by searching for "Startup Applications" in the dash. Also, you can always launch it by pressing Alt + F2 (or opening a terminal) and running gnome-session-properties.

Add Startup Program

Mounting the Partition

Option 1: Add partition to /etc/fstab

Option 2: Use udisks

Add this startup command as shown previously:

udisks --mount /dev/sda2
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thank you! But can you point out how to achieve the first task in a non-GUI way? For the second, thank you for letting me know but I wonder if there's any disadvantage when just doing a mkdir and a mount. –  Covi Feb 26 '12 at 6:41
Can't find this screen on Ubuntu 12.04 –  That Brazilian Guy Jan 23 '13 at 15:15
@ruda.almeida see the changes I made to the post. –  jamesadney Jan 25 '13 at 2:03
Thanks! My copy of Ubuntu is not in English, so I had a hard time finding it. Thanks for taking your time to expand this answer! –  That Brazilian Guy Jan 25 '13 at 2:42
No problem! I'm glad you got it working. –  jamesadney Jan 25 '13 at 14:40
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  • Create a script file, e.g. named my_file.sh, in the /etc/profile.d/ directory.
  • Put #!/bin/bash as the first line.
  • Write whatever command(s) you want to be executed immediately after logging in, e.g. pgrep udhcpd.
  • Mark your file as executable: chmod +x /etc/profile.d/my_file.sh

*It should get executed after login. In case it doesn't or you don't have the ability to use root privileges, creating the same file under ~/.config/autostart should work fine (I haven't tried this directory before).

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