add program to startup?

I have a few programs I would like to run on startup, but I don't know much about Linux. Could someone explain to me how I could add a program to startup?

Thanks.

[charles]

You can add a call to start it in /etc/rc.d/rc.local. But first check there is no service script in /etc/init.d ofr it (which you'd enable start with 'chkconfig servicename on').

charles

How to I write the command for this? Here is what my file looks like right now:

#!/bin/sh
#
# This script will be executed *after* all the other init scripts.
# You can put your own initialization stuff in here if you don't
# want to do the full Sys V style init stuff.

touch /var/lock/subsys/local

cd /path/to/file
./appname paramater

cd /path/to/file
./appname

I've been reading a bunch of docs on rc.local, but I can't seem to get any of the commands to work. Is there a place I can go to check boot logs? It's hard for me to troubleshoot the problem when I don't know what it is, or even if the file is being executed at startup.

[charles]

You'd enter exactly what you'd run on the commandline to launch it (assuming it runs as root). If you need to put it in the background, add a '&' at the end.

If you want to see if it's going to work , run 'sh rc.local'

charles

Thank you for your help. I'm 100% sure the path is correct, but it says 'no such file or directory' when I run the file. When I type the exact same command at the command line, it runs perfectly fine. I'm stumped.

[charles]

Originally Posted by KingPooky

Thank you for your help. I'm 100% sure the path is correct, but it says 'no such file or directory' when I run the file. When I type the exact same command at the command line, it runs perfectly fine. I'm stumped.

You are not giving details so it's tough to help you, but typically this just means the program is not in your path. For example, 'service httpd restart' might work on the commandline because /sbin is in your path, but in a cron job or rc.local say, you'd need to use '/sbin/service httpd restart'.

hth
charles

I have these two lines in my file:
. /usr/local/Unreal3.2/unreal start
. /root/services/services

Each works from the command line, but neither work in rc.local. The first line says I am not including the word "start", and the second line says no such file or directory.

[charles]

Remove the leading '. ' . If the second line still doesn't work, what does 'ls -l /root/services/services' give you?

I tried the file with and without the leading . Both resulted in the same outcome:
Usage: unreal start|stop|rehash|restart|mkpasswd|version
: No such file or directory /root/services/services

When I run "ls-l /root/services/services" I get:
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 1527161 Aug 18 2005 /root/services/services