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2.12.1 Starting the buildslave

Cron jobs are typically run with a minimal shell (/bin/sh, not /bin/bash), and tilde expansion is not always performed in such commands. You may want to use explicit paths, because the PATH is usually quite short and doesn't include anything set by your shell's startup scripts (.profile, .bashrc, etc). If you've installed buildbot (or other python libraries) to an unusual location, you may need to add a PYTHONPATH specification (note that python will do tilde-expansion on PYTHONPATH elements by itself). Sometimes it is safer to fully-specify everything:

     @reboot PYTHONPATH=~/lib/python /usr/local/bin/buildbot start /usr/home/buildbot/basedir

Take the time to get the @reboot job set up. Otherwise, things will work fine for a while, but the first power outage or system reboot you have will stop the buildslave with nothing but the cries of sorrowful developers to remind you that it has gone away.