How can I have my Mac mount a network drive when an application launches?

Question

I outsourced the storage for my "iTunes Media", "iTunes Music" and "Mobile Applications" using symlinks onto a network drive.

I didn't outsource the complete media library because of performance reasons with iTunes.

It would be nice to connect to my network drive when I launch iTunes as it fails less than gracefully when the network storage isn't already mounted.

Is there a way to mount a network drive prior to a particular application launching?

Answer 1

Using Automator and the excellent SleepWatcher utility, I have a setup that automatically connects to my network drive when the computer starts, then automatically reconnects when the computer wakes from sleep.

I've written a tutorial in a blog post.

An update in response to CajunLuke's question:

The Automator app connects to the network drive and incorporates a 10 second delay to ensure the network connection is ready.

SleepWatcher runs as a daemon, and allows you to schedule the execution of scripts when your computer goes to sleep or wakes from sleep. In this case you configure it to run a shell script when the computer wakes that calls the aforementioned Automator app.

Answer 2

And easy solution would be to automatically have your network shares mounted for you when you log in. A program like Network Drive Launcher would aid in automatically scripting and connecting to networked shares when you log in.

Alternatively you could write an Apple Script that would replace clicking on the iTunes icon to start iTunes, not ideal since you would have to click the script first.

1. Open the AppleScript Editor application.
2. Type in the following

:

--open the network location first
tell application "Finder"
    open location "smb://... OR afp://..."
end tell

--wait 10 seconds adjust this time to meet your needs
delay 10

--open iTunes
tell application "iTunes"
    activate
end tell

1. Save the script File > Save

2. Name it what you like but be sure to set the file format to "Application" on the "File Format:" dropdown.

3. Run the script, you can treat it like any other Application.

Lastly, it looks like it may possible to write an Apple Script that does exactly what you want, here is a link to something that may be able to work with some modification. I could not get it to work on Lion, some syntax issues need to be resolved. Run a script whenever an application opens

What you need is an applescript that stays open all the time and performs its tasks periodically. So here's an example applescript for you. Save it as an application and check the "stay open" box to make it stay open after you launch it. The way a stay-open script works is there's 2 main handlers, the "on run" and the "on idle". "on run" runs once at application launch. "on idle" runs every so often. You set how often it runs by returning a number of seconds at the end of the handler. So here's the example... it sets up the application parameters in the "on run" handler and then in "on idle" it can check those parameters. Right now this script just displays the results but you can make it do whatever you want at this point. global applicationsToWatch, idleTime ...

Answer 3

I made a script that connects to a network drive when iTunes is running. You can download it from this gist page (look for the "raw" download link).

#!/bin/sh

HOST="hostname" # AFP server, e.g. server.local or 192.168.1.94 or…
USER="your_user_name" # for connection to AFP server
PASS="your_password" # for connection to AFP server
VOLUMENAME="your_volume_name" # name of volume to be mounted, typically username on AFP server.

while :
do
    if [[  $(ps axo pid,command | grep "/Applications/[i]Tunes.app/Contents/MacOS/iTunes ") ]]; then

        if [ ! -d "/Volumes/${VOLUMENAME}" ]; then # iTunes runs, Server not mounted
            echo "iTunes runs, now mounting ${VOLUMENAME}..."
            mkdir "/Volumes/${VOLUMENAME}"
            mount_afp afp://${USER}:${PASS}@${HOST}/${VOLUMENAME} "/Volumes/${VOLUMENAME}"
        fi
    fi
sleep 2
done # start over

Basically, it runs in an infinite loop and checks every two seconds if iTunes.app is running. If so, it checks whether your AFP volume is mounted already, and does so if not.

You’ll have to configure the script before running it for the first time, see the variables on top of the script. VOLUMENAME is the name from the normal AFP connection dialog (ssd in this case):

To check if the thing works in principle: Let’s say the script is on the Desktop, in Terminal type cd ~/Desktop/, then ./mount_afp_when_itunes_running.sh.

In case of Permission denied, set the file permissions so that you can run the script with chmod 755 mount_afp_when_itunes_running.sh, then try again.

Finally, if everything works, you could then launch this script automatically via a Launch Agent.

Answer 4

This may be a bit off topic, but there’s no need to symlink the iTunes directories! To select any iTunes library residing anywhere on any disk, just hold ⌥ immediately after launching iTunes.