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I start my roslaunch on start up using cron (http://wiki.ubuntuusers.de/Cron) and screen (http://wiki.ubuntuusers.de/screen).

I have a /home/user/autostart/autostart_screens.sh that get executed by cron @reboot (Meaning whenever the PC is booted). You can set these startup files via crontab command. See crontab --help. My current crontab -l gives:

# Edit this file to introduce tasks to be run by cron.
# 
# Each task to run has to be defined through a single line
# indicating with different fields when the task will be run
# and what command to run for the task
# 
# To define the time you can provide concrete values for
# minute (m), hour (h), day of month (dom), month (mon),
# and day of week (dow) or use '*' in these fields (for 'any').# 
# Notice that tasks will be started based on the cron's system
# daemon's notion of time and timezones.
# 
# Output of the crontab jobs (including errors) is sent through
# email to the user the crontab file belongs to (unless redirected).
# 
# For example, you can run a backup of all your user accounts
# at 5 a.m every week with:
# 0 5 * * 1 tar -zcf /var/backups/home.tgz /home/
# 
# For more information see the manual pages of crontab(5) and cron(8)
# 
# m h  dom mon dow   command
@reboot bash /home/user/autostart/autostart_screens.sh

My autostart_screens.sh starts and detaches two screen sessions and logs any thing happening inbetween to a log file. It looks like:

# !/bin/bash
LOG_FILE=/home/user/autostart/logs/log_autostart_screens.txt

echo "" >> ${LOG_FILE}
echo "" >> ${LOG_FILE}
echo "" >> ${LOG_FILE}
echo "" >> ${LOG_FILE}
echo "#############################################" >> ${LOG_FILE}
echo "Running autostart_screens.sh" >> ${LOG_FILE}
echo $(date) >> ${LOG_FILE}
echo "#############################################" >> ${LOG_FILE}
echo "" >> ${LOG_FILE}
echo "Logs:" >> ${LOG_FILE}

set -e
set -v

{

screen -d -m bash /home/user/autostart/start_roscore.sh
screen -d -m bash /home/user/autostart/start_roslaunch.sh

} &>> ${LOG_FILE}

Note that it is not blocking as it just starts the screens.

The start_roscore.sh looks like:

# !/bin/bash
LOG_FILE=/home/user/autostart/logs/log_start_roscore.txt
echo "" >> ${LOG_FILE}
echo "" >> ${LOG_FILE}
echo "" >> ${LOG_FILE}
echo "" >> ${LOG_FILE}
echo "#############################################" >> ${LOG_FILE}
echo "Running start_roscore.sh" >> ${LOG_FILE}
echo $(date) >> ${LOG_FILE}
echo "#############################################" >> ${LOG_FILE}
echo "" >> ${LOG_FILE}
echo "Logs:" >> ${LOG_FILE}

set -e

{

source /opt/ros/hydro/setup.bash
source /home/user/workspace/ros_hydro/catkin/devel/setup.bash

export ROS_WORKSPACE=/home/user/workspace/ros_hydro/catkin

export ROS_MASTER_URI=http://192.168.1.10:11311/ ##e. g. Master
export ROS_IP=192.168.1.15                   ##e. g. Own IP

sleep 5

} &>> ${LOG_FILE}

set -v

{

roscore

} &>> ${LOG_FILE}

The start_roslaunch.sh looks like:

# !/bin/bash
LOG_FILE=/home/user/autostart/logs/log_start_roslaunch.txt
echo "" >> ${LOG_FILE}
echo "" >> ${LOG_FILE}
echo "" >> ${LOG_FILE}
echo "" >> ${LOG_FILE}
echo "#############################################" >> ${LOG_FILE}
echo "Running start_roslaunch.sh" >> ${LOG_FILE}
echo $(date) >> ${LOG_FILE}
echo "#############################################" >> ${LOG_FILE}
echo "" >> ${LOG_FILE}
echo "Logs:" >> ${LOG_FILE}

set -e

{
source /opt/ros/hydro/setup.bash
source /home/user/workspace/ros_hydro/catkin/devel/setup.bash

export ROS_WORKSPACE=/home/user/workspace/ros_hydro/catkin

export ROS_MASTER_URI=http://192.168.1.10:11311/
export ROS_IP=192.168.1.15

sleep 8

} &>> ${LOG_FILE}

set -v

{

roslaunch my_pkg my_launch.launch

} &>> ${LOG_FILE}

All logs go to /home/user/autostart/logs. After start youn can verify your ros being up using rosnode list. You can monitor your screens using screen -ls. Note that the timeout in start_roslaunch.sh is longer than in start_roscore.sh. In order for shutting down the nodes on my computer if I want to use it for something else I use this script:

# !/bin/bash

for session in $(screen -ls | grep -o '[0-9]\{5\}')
do
    screen -S "${session}" -X quit;
done

It sends a Crlt+C to all running screen sessions.