Trouble getting a launchctl login script to run on Mac OS X

Question

I've been reading this topic: Running script upon login mac and trying to follow its guidelines for using launchctl to create a bash shell script that runs automatically at login. I just CAN'T GET IT TO WORK! The shell script I want to launch is as follows:

#!/bin/bash
#
# Shell script to start the RobotFramework Auto-Started Servers.
#
# Copyright (c) 2014 Texas Instruments, Inc.
#
#-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
#
#
# Start the dispatcher as an independent background task with its own virtual screen
#
cd /Users/epsqainfprod/RobotFramework/Extensions/Dispatcher
screen -S Dispatcher -d -m ./StartDispatcher.sh
#
# Start the RunProcServer
#
cd /Users/epsqainfprod/RobotFramework/Extensions/RunProcess
screen -S RunProcServer -d -m ./RunProcServer.sh
#
#  -------------------------------- End of file --------------------------------

If I invoke this from the command line it works fine, creating two independently running, screen processes. I created a .plist file for this, following the instructions from the referenced post:

cat ~/Library/LaunchAgents/com.user.loginscript.plist 
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple Computer//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
   <key>Label</key>
   <string>com.user.loginscript</string>
   <key>Program</key>
   <string>/Users/epsqainfprod/TEMP/AutoStartScripts.sh</string>
   <key>RunAtLoad</key>
   <true/>
</dict>

where the above shell script is in the file /Users/epsqainfprod/TEMP/AutoStartScripts.sh. I've checked system.log and all it shows is:

Dec  2 08:05:49 epsqainf5lab15.itg.ti.com login[2109]: USER_PROCESS: 2109 ttys000
Dec  2 08:05:49 epsqainf5lab15.itg.ti.com login[2109]: DEAD_PROCESS: 2109 ttys000
Dec  2 08:07:33 epsqainf5lab15.itg.ti.com login[2117]: USER_PROCESS: 2117 ttys000
Dec  2 08:07:33 epsqainf5lab15.itg.ti.com login[2117]: DEAD_PROCESS: 2117 ttys000

So I'm completely stumped on this. Does anyone have any suggestions how to get this working?

Add some commands like `date >> /tmp/debug.txt` to the start of the scripts to see how much of them gets executed. — Mark Setchell, Dec 02 '14 at 14:59
Try running `which screen` In your Terminal to get its full path and use that in your script instead of plain `screen`. — Mark Setchell, Dec 02 '14 at 15:10

score 1 · Answer 1 · answered Dec 02 '14 at 22:41

Seems there were two problems with my approach:

The "screen" command only seems to work when you're running it from a command with ancestry to a terminal screen.
If "screen" worked, then it would return. If both "screen" steps worked then the AutoStartScripts.sh would terminate.

My solution, now working fine, was to create two shell scripts:

AutoStartDispatcher.sh
AutoStartRunProcServer.sh

and then create two .plist files, one pointing to each of the two .sh files:

RF.AutoLaunch.Dispatcher.plist
RF.AutoLaunch.RunProcServer.plist

Then I went through the "launchctl load <.plist file path>" step for each of the .plist files.

Trouble getting a launchctl login script to run on Mac OS X

1 Answers1