play video while bootup

[mailsatish]

Hi friends,

I want to play a video thru VLC player as soon as when system boots up. is it possible using crontab or any other way to go about it??? Also I want to play a file by telneting to a remote server (eg: the file is present is /media/disk/movie.mpg). is it possible to write a script and execute them using crontab.

[jpollard]

I don't think so.

The only place the display would be available is during progress splash screen.
But the network isn't available at that time... Plus, the display isn't the X server,
which means VLC can't do anything.

After the boot screen terminate, gdm/xdm/kdm is running which slaves the X
display for logins, which makes it unavailable for other uses.

[mailsatish]

isn't there any way to go abt it. to play movie during startup.... i just wanted to telnet to a remote server and play a media file in that server when system boots up....

[jpollard]

Not on one system.

You can do that on your workstation while a remote server is booting...

But you can't boot and expect the network to be working before the boot is finished
or nearly finished...

[mailsatish]

ya thats fine.. i want the file to be played after the remote machine gets booted.... shall i write all those commands in a script and execute them using crontab from my sys... can u give an ex on how to invoke commands on remote machine by telneting.. the same procedure as we do in local sys...

[jpollard]

Ah - that is a bit different that what you described.

The best way to do that is to have a local daemon running to receive a message
after the remote has booted. Then you can have a local application connect
to the local daemon so the daemon can inform the application which system
has booted (and perhaps some status..) then the application can either do
its' own video, or use VLC to play the video appropriate to the message.

You might even be able to use the dbus network connections to simplify this as
that might handle the necessary authentication and identification for you. The
daemon side would then already exist.

The problem with having the remote server login and display something is that
the remote authentication to the local system does not include X display
authentication. Which user on the local system has the display, what if it
isn't logged in...or otherwise occupied.

Now if all you want is to monitor and know when the remote system is available
look at nagios (http://www.nagios.org/) - it has several ways to tell when a remote
system is up/down, all accessible via a browser.