How to write a shell script that gets executed on login?

Question

I am trying to write bash shell script in Ubuntu 11.10 Linux distro, that will get executed automatically on logging into the system. But I am not able to figure out that what to write in script that by it will get automatically executed on logging in.

Answer 1

If you want it to be global, modify

 /etc/profile 

or add a script to

 /etc/profile.d

If you want it to be user-specific, modify

 ~/.profile

Answer 2

/etc/profile or $HOME/.profile or $HOME/.bash_profile

I would highly recommend against using /etc/profile.d/yourscript.sh if it produces output. When you use a non-interactive session, you will receive a $TERM is not set message. This is noticeable when using the ssh protocol, like scp. Usually not a big deal, however, Veeam doesn't like it and will throw a warning. I know Veeam is not the topic here, but it's worth mentioning that not all applications will gracefully ignore the $TERM is not set warning.

In short, if the script generates output, place it in the locations specified on the first line. However, if you're modifying the environment and your script doesn't generate output, then use the latter.

Answer 3

In Debian/Ubuntu, just add your script to System settings > Workspace > Startup and Shutdown > Autostart.

This setting is written to smth like ~/.config/autostart/myscript.sh.desktop.

Google says this works with default Window Managers in KDE, Gnome, Mate etc., but doesn't work with WMs without Session Manager like Leftwm, Spectrwm, xmonad, bspwm, dwm, i3wm, etc. For those one can try to autostart stuff by adding systemd targets and make them depend on graphical enviroment (Gnome, etc.), which is also run by systemd.

Answer 4

If you want to be more bash specific you can also write you code in ~/.bash_profile or ~/.bash_login.

And you can source any script therein for example:

if [ -f ~/.bashrc ]; then
   source ~/.bashrc
fi

Answer 5

Just a data point since the question is tagged Ubuntu.

Under Ubuntu 20.04 and 22.04, the only option to autoload of a script/command at each login is (that worked for me) to add it in

~/.bash_profile

As stated in the comments, adding it to ~/.profile doesn't seem to invoke the script. Adding it to /etc/profile.d/ is not per login.

Answer 6

To execute a shell script on login in Ubuntu 11.10, you can add your script to the ~/.bashrc file. This file is executed each time a login shell starts up, so any commands or scripts added here will be run whenever you log in to your system. To add your script to ~/.bashrc, Open a terminal and navigate to your home directory by typing: cd ~/ Next, open the .bashrc file in a text editor using the following command: nano .bashrc Once you have the file open, navigate to the end of the file and add the following line: /path/to/your/script.sh Make sure to replace "/path/to/your/script.sh" with the actual path to your script. Also, make sure that your script is executable by running: chmod +x /path/to/your/script.sh Save and close the file, and the next time you log in, your script should be executed automatically. Let me know if it works for you!