Contributor deejross

Let's say you have an application(non-gui) or a command that you want to run at boot (before a user logs in). There should be an easy way to make this happen. For non-blocking applications(daemons), it would just fire and forget. If it is a blocking application (one that holds the terminal until it terminates), it wraps it into a daemon.

Example: I have a virtual machine (in VirtualBox) that runs a Windows-only server application. I access this VM when I need to through RDP (rdesktop), but I want to run this VM when my machine boots.

Another example: Alice just installed a service that does not come with an init script, and must run this service when the machine boots. She would really like an easy way to start this service without having to write her own init script.

Another example: Bob has a bash script that continually checks for updates for something and downloads new updates. He's not always logged in, or someone else is using the machine. But he wants the newest version to be there when he's ready for it.