Error starting gnome-terminal from /etc/rc.local ubuntu 12.04

Question

I am unable to start gnome-terminal from rc.local , with the following error.

** (gnome-terminal:1304): WARNING **: Command line `dbus-launch --autolaunch=bd53fdd726adb41172f458c100000007 --binary-syntax --close-stderr' exited with non-zero exit status 1: Autolaunch error: X11 initialization failed.\n
Failed to parse arguments: Cannot open display: 
Failed to parse arguments: Cannot open display:

the command inside rc.local is
cd /path/to/server
gnome-terminal -e 'sudo node startserver.js'

Answer 1

There seems to be an error message trying to tell you something: exited with non-zero exit status 1: Autolaunch error: X11 initialization failed- in other words, rc.local doesn't have an X display to start gnome-terminal from.

If you're sure that an X display will be available at the time this executes (and I doubt this - rc.local finishes executing long before an X display comes up), you can try env DISPLAY=:0 gnome-terminal -e 'sudo node startserver.js'. This may be problematic, as the gnome-terminal will run as root (which is a Bad Idea for several reasons).

If, on the other hand, you're trying to start a terminal in the logged-in user's X display (which seems to be your end goal), you may want to add the command to your autostart scripts. See this for the GUI version, see your ~/.config/autostart and /etc/xdg/autostart for the results.