It's quite simple: i want to stick a USB drive in a Mac, and have that
mac execute a program of my choosing upon insertion.

In windows, there is an 'autorun.inf' file that contains a path to the
application. So, any media inserted has the potential to automatically
run an application simply by putting this textfile on the media.

I know there is an 'autostart' thanks to quicktime (since v 2.0) - but
it has a peculiar low level HFS implimentation that requires users to
rely on application developers (toast, being the most common method)
to let them autostart. And such applications only allow authoring of
CD-ROM / DVD ISO, not usb memory stick.

I had the notion of using software
[http://www.cdeverywhere.com/manual/en/script.shtml] to make a
bootable CD-ROM iso, then transfer the ISO to a USB drive, but i don't
know how to do so and not corrupt the ISO.

I have very little experience with OSX, and i cannot seem to find an
easy method of auto-executing upon USB media insertion.

The application i want to run will most likely just be a shell script.
(i simply want to copy files)

thank you!

---

Clarification of Question by nan0-ga on 21 Nov 2005 13:51 PST

After more research, i have learned that even the quicktime
'autostart' functionality has been *completely disabled* in OS X.

[security issues]

thus i will probably just set up a cron job to grep 'mount' output,
and perform command on drive if any changes.

if anyone has better ideas, chime up, gladly pay.

Depending on what version of OS X you are running you can either set
up an Applescript to execute on media insertion or an create an
Automater application to run at media insertion. In OS X 10.4 Tiger,
there is a selection menu (~/library/preferences) that allows you to
choose what happens when you insert media.

This may be an over-simplistic way of addressing the issue, but
hopefully this will get you headed in the right direction.

Indeed - this is interesting, and i did not know this.

However, the UI method you speak of only allows configuration of DVD &
CDs, not USB drives.

Since i wrote this, i have gotten my crontab working - but it only
checks every minute (smallest cron resolution)

and frankly, i still cannot find a way to do the ideal:

launch my own script based on the system USB automount event.

thanks again for writing, i'm keeping at it, hopefully something will
turn up in next few days.

cheers

i figured out a method

see

http://www.apple.com/applescript/folderactions/01.html

i will eventually learn how to do this without UI; some plist somewhere no doubt.

meanwhile - this will work, and is a bit smarter than my cron job.