Autostarting an application just by inserting USB Stick

[ralcocer]

I found this http://www.unix.com/shell-programming-a ... evice.html however I have been unable to compile autorun http://linux.softpedia.com/get/Utilitie ... 5250.shtml has anyone ever tried this?. I want to autostart office when I plugin the USB stick.

Thanks
Rafael Alcocer

[brokenman]

Here is how I do it. I will assume your USB is plugged in at lies at: /dev/sdb1

Get the model of your USB.

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udevadm info -a -n sdb1 | grep model

ATTRS{model}=="silicon-power "

Create a udev rule that will run a script on plugin.

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cat /etc/udev/rules.d/98-usb-run.rules

ACTION=="add", SUBSYSTEM=="block", KERNEL=="sd[a-z]1", ATTRS{model}=="silicon-power ", RUN+="/usr/local/bin/run.sh"

Create the script to run:

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cat /usr/local/bin/run.sh

#!/bin/bash
touch /tmp/touched.txt

Make it executable:

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chmod +x /usr/loca/bin/run.sh

Reload your udev rules.

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udevadm control --reload-rules

Unmount your device. Remove it. Plug it back in and see that your script has run.

Be responsible. Don't anything stupid for example like put a porn video on your friends copy of porteus and run a script that launches it at full volume. It doesn't end well.

[brokenman]

If you are running anything other than a console job you may run into trouble. Probably due to the dbus communication and no display. I just saw that you are wanting to run office so follow this instead.

I found this method a while back for popping up a notification when plugging in a USB. It requires creating three files.

1. A udev rule
2. A dbus workaround script
3. Your main script to run

File 1: /etc/udev/rules.d/98-usb-run.rules

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ACTION=="add", SUBSYSTEM=="block", KERNEL=="sd[a-z]1", ATTRS{model}=="silicon-power   ", RUN+="/home/guest/runguest.sh 'Important community announcement' 'Somebody just stuck something in your port!'"

File 2: /usr/local/bin/dbus-workaround.sh

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#!/bin/sh
user=guest
pids=`pgrep nm-applet`
title=$1
text=$2
timeout=$3
icon=$4

xhost local:guest
export DISPLAY=:0.0
 
if [ -z "$title" ]; then
 echo You need to give me a title >&2
 exit 1
fi
if [ -z "$text" ]; then
 text=$title
fi
if [ -z "$timeout" ]; then
 timeout=60000
fi
 
for pid in $pids; do
 # find DBUS session bus for this session
 DBUS_SESSION_BUS_ADDRESS=`grep -z DBUS_SESSION_BUS_ADDRESS \
 /proc/$pid/environ | sed -e 's/DBUS_SESSION_BUS_ADDRESS=//'`
 # use it

 #icon hack:
 if [ -z $icon ]; then
 DBUS_SESSION_BUS_ADDRESS=$DBUS_SESSION_BUS_ADDRESS \
 notify-send -u low -t $timeout "$title" "$text"
 else
 DBUS_SESSION_BUS_ADDRESS=$DBUS_SESSION_BUS_ADDRESS \
 notify-send -u low -t $timeout -i "$icon" "$title" "$text"
 fi
done

File 3: /home/guest/runguest.sh

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sudo -u guest /usr/local/bin/dbus-workaround.sh "$1" "$2" 6000

Using this I get a popup message through notify-send when I plug in. Just replace the bit about running notify-send with your GUI and you are good to go.
Again, on a serious note. Be aware of the HUUUGE security implications here.

[brokenman]

Out of interest I wanted to see. I have reduced it to the following:

File 1: /etc/udev/rules.d/98-usb-run.rules

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ACTION=="add", SUBSYSTEM=="block", KERNEL=="sd[a-z]1", ATTRS{model}=="silicon-power   ", RUN+="/home/guest/runguest.sh"

File 2: /home/guest/runguest.sh

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#!/bin/bash
xhost local:guest
export DISPLAY=:0.0
sudo -u guest /usr/bin/gnome-mplayer

That's all that is needed. The important part is the DISPLAY variable being exported, and running the GUI app as guest.