Be cool Part 4 - setting up a cron job and shell command script

Be cool Part 4 - setting up a cron job and shell command script

This script will make the Pi load and execute our fanControl script automatically at startup every time. To make the fancontrol.py program run at startup the first thing that we need to do is to create a shell script.

You can also download this from Dropbox


#!/bin/sh
# copy this file to /scripts
cd /
cd home/pi/scripts
sudo python fanControl.py
cd ~


do this by typing into the terminal screen -
(if you do not have nano you can use another editor, or use sudo apt-get install nano to get it)

go to our /scripts folder

cd /scripts

sudo nano launcher.sh

now we need to make the shell script executable

sudo
sudo chmod +x launcher.sh

they are the same in function.

Test the script

sudo sh launcher.sh

the fan should run for 5 seconds, or longer of the CPU is hot

use 'ctrl' + c to exit it


Make a cron job for itthis will make it run at startup 

cd ~
mkdir logs
sudo crontab -e

in the cron program type

@reboot sh /home/pi/scripts/launcher.sh >/home/pi/logs/cronlog 2>&1

and reboot

sudo reboot

If the fan does not run for 5 seconds at boot up, type  

cat cronlog
from a terminal and read the log.

See part 5 to find how to install it on OSMC installs


Good luck!