I have no keyboard and display connected to my Raspberry Pi (running Raspbian), but log in to it over the network by using ssh.
Now, I wanted to automatically start a program when the Raspberry Pi boots up, but also be able to see the console output of that program when needed.
To accomplish that, I’ve done the following:
- sudo apt-get install mingetty
- sudo apt-get install screen
- Edit /etc/inittab, and changed the part with getty’s to autologin on tty3 with mingetty as user pi
...snip... # /sbin/getty invocations for the runlevels. # # The "id" field MUST be the same as the last # characters of the device (after "tty"). # # Format: # <id>:<runlevels>:<action>:<process> # # Note that on most Debian systems tty7 is used by the X Window System, # so if you want to add more getty's go ahead but skip tty7 if you run X. # 1:2345:respawn:/sbin/getty --noclear 38400 tty1 2:23:respawn:/sbin/getty 38400 tty2 #3:23:respawn:/sbin/getty 38400 tty3 #4:23:respawn:/sbin/getty 38400 tty4 #5:23:respawn:/sbin/getty 38400 tty5 #6:23:respawn:/sbin/getty 38400 tty6 T:23:respawn:/sbin/mingetty --autologin=pi tty3 ...snip...
- Add the following to /home/pi/.profile, to autostart a program when user pi login on tty3
if [ -z "$DISPLAY" ] && [ $(tty) == /dev/tty3 ]; then screen -d -m /home/pi/tstat fi
So, when the Raspberry Pi boots, user pi will automatically log in and run the program tstat. Because tstat is started with screen, I can log in with ssh and run screen -R to see the output of tstat and press ctrl-a d to exit screen, but leave tstat running.
