While installing docker, I decided I needed to write some notifications to ensure the configuration works. See Docker. I started with a TCL/TK script, which these days looks a bit old school, and writing the packer was (& remains) difficult. Virtualbox reports its status on Ubuntu via a very pretty interface, prettier than Apple script anyway, so I thought I’d have a lock.

The command is notify-send. This is part of the desktop, obviously not needed if running headless.

1. http://manpages.ubuntu.com/manpages/trusty/man1/notify-send.1.html – the man page
2. http://www.linuxjournal.com/content/tech-tip-get-notifications-your-scripts-notify-send – some examples
3. http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1411620 – an ubuntu forums thread with some tips

It comes with some standard icons, somewhere in the /usr/share/icons directories, allegedly, I made myself a docker icon, .png 32×32 to decorate the message.

I found it on google, and replaced the white background with transparency. It’s not ideal, maybe I should find something better. Here’s a screen shot,

$ notify-send -i ${icon file, path and basename} "Docker Daemon" \
        "docker daemon is running"

I plan to put this in my .profile; or somewhere else if that doesn’t work on a graphic login. This article on stackexchange addresses how to run a script on GNOME login.

I came across another use case and needed it to run on an elementary OS systems. The version of notification used by elementary seems to have some differences. I installed notify-osd and then copied the icon I wanted to use to /usr/share/icons. The icon is then referred to by its file name prefix.

Installing on Raspbian; installing notify-send on Raspbian. Stranger than expected.