user_manual_bot_auto_start.md

Usage manual for auto-start scripts on kraken 3.0

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The auto-start scripts on the bot are all 'shell-scripts' placed under /home/teamauv/startup_scripts/ . The scripts are run by the 'X server' on user login. Therefore it's crucial that auto-login is enabled on the bot (otherwise even though the bot boots the scripts won't be run). To enable auto-login refer the follwing : http://askubuntu.com/questions/51086/how-do-i-enable-auto-login-in-lightdm

• To add your own scripts you must place your 'shell-scripts' under ~/startup_scripts/ and append the following line to ~/.gnomerc

  bash /home/teamauv/<your_script>.sh

• Remember to add shebang to your script and change permissions to make your script executable.

#!/bin/bash

<your commands here>

chmod +x your_script_name.sh

• At present the working and yet systematic way to launch any '.launch' file at boot is as follows :

/usr/bin/gnome-terminal -x sh -c " tmux new -d -s <session_name> 'export env-var1=blah; export env-var2=blah; roslaunch /absolute/path/to/.launch;'"

• This creates a detached tmux session with a job running on it.
• The addition of appropriate environment variable (mainly ROS_WORKSPACE and ROS_PACKAGE_PATH) is important (only absolute paths must be used for variables too), since sourcing other scripts doesn't work.
• Notice the -d argument to tmux. This self-detaches the client from the newly created session. If -d is not used it would halt futher processing (as control would be stuck) and we wont be able to run any more commands. Furthermore the GUI on the system won't start.
• For monitoring the jobs (using ssh) we can attach a tmux client to the appropriate tmux session using the follwing commands :

tmux list-sessions


tmux attach -t <session-name>