Is /etc/rc.local called twice on boot?

[Bo Berglund]

On Tue, 26 Oct 2021 15:54:48 +0100, Colin Law <clanlaw at gmail.com> wrote:

>On Tue, 26 Oct 2021 at 15:19, Bo Berglund <bo.berglund at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> On Tue, 26 Oct 2021 10:51:24 +0100, Colin Law <clanlaw at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> >>
>> >> This is the *only* command inside rc.local:
>> >>
>> >> /home/bosse/bin/ipreport.sh 60 &
>> >>
>> >
>> >Add a command to log something from there and then you can check
>> >whether it is being called twice or whether something else is going
>> >on.
>>
>> Now done that including a timestamp with seconds, now I have to wait until the
>> next restart to see if it works properly or not.
>
>Another thing to look at is
>grep "rc.local" /var/log/syslog
>and see what it says.  If it shows nothing then the log might have
>been rotated so try syslog.1
>
This is what I see:

$ grep "rc.local" /var/log/syslog
Oct 26 17:11:33 ubuntuserv systemd[1]: Starting LSB: Run /etc/rc.local if it
exist...
Oct 26 17:11:33 ubuntuserv systemd[1]: Started LSB: Run /etc/rc.local if it
exist.

Oct 26 17:11:46 ubuntuserv systemd[1]: Starting /etc/rc.local Compatibility...
Oct 26 17:11:46 ubuntuserv systemd[1]: Started /etc/rc.local Compatibility.

Oct 26 17:12:33 ubuntuserv rc.local[957]: Extracted Ethernet IP address:
192.168.119.216 a4:ae:12:7f:4d:c3
Oct 26 17:12:33 ubuntuserv rc.local[957]: Extracted hostname: ubuntuserv
Oct 26 17:12:33 ubuntuserv rc.local[2393]:   % Total    % Received % Xferd
Average Speed   Time    Time     Time  Current
Oct 26 17:12:33 ubuntuserv rc.local[2393]:
Dload  Upload   Total   Spent    Left  Speed
Oct 26 17:12:33 ubuntuserv rc.local[2393]: #015  0     0    0     0    0     0
0      0 --:--:-- --:--:-- --:--:--     0#0151
00   115  100    15  100   100     71    478 --:--:-- --:--:-- --:--:--   550
Oct 26 17:12:33 ubuntuserv rc.local[2393]: <br>Success<br>

Oct 26 17:12:45 ubuntuserv rc.local[1268]: Extracted Ethernet IP address:
192.168.119.216 a4:ae:12:7f:4d:c3
Oct 26 17:12:45 ubuntuserv rc.local[1268]: Extracted hostname: ubuntuserv
Oct 26 17:12:45 ubuntuserv rc.local[2419]:   % Total    % Received % Xferd
Average Speed   Time    Time     Time  Current
Oct 26 17:12:45 ubuntuserv rc.local[2419]:
Dload  Upload   Total   Spent    Left  Speed
Oct 26 17:12:45 ubuntuserv rc.local[2419]: #015  0     0    0     0    0     0
0      0 --:--:-- --:--:-- --:--:--     0#0151
00   115  100    15  100   100     50    334 --:--:-- --:--:-- --:--:--   384
Oct 26 17:12:45 ubuntuserv rc.local[2419]: <br>Success<br>

Notice that the output here matches my log lines and timestamps of received
messages, which also shows that the script is actuallyu being called twice:

2021-10-26 17:12:33 Reporting ipaddr=192.168.119.216
2021-10-26 17:12:45 Reporting ipaddr=192.168.119.216

The strange thing here in the syslog is that there are two "Started" lines at
17:11:33 and 17:11:46

And what does "Starting /etc/rc.local Compatibility..." actually mean?
What Compatibility?

Note:
The stuff between "Extracted Ethernet..." and "Success<br>" is script and curl
screen output since I did not redirect output to /dev/null...

Question:
---------
Is there a way to have grep output lines before and after a specific line hit?
Say I will grep for "Starting /etc/rc.local" and want to see 10 lines before and
after each hit?
Is that possible?

-- 
Bo Berglund
Developer in Sweden