There have been many times where I thought to myself — I wish my computer would do X when it goes to sleep and Y when it wakes up. There are many applications for this, some include:

• Mounting an SSH filesystem depending on WiFi connection
• Have the computer greet you and dismiss you (very nerdy)
• Disconnect/Kill some application that always hangs on sleep
• Move files from one folder to another
• Tweet

So how is this nerdy matter accomplished? It’s actually pretty trivial. Familiar with bash? Then you’re on the way to sleep/wake success!

Installing Sleepwatcher

Head over to http://www.bernhard-baehr.de/ and download a copy of Sleepwatcher 2.2. The installation instructions are pretty simple:

$ sudo mkdir -p /usr/local/sbin /usr/local/share/man/man8
$ sudo cp ~/Desktop/sleepwatcher_2.2/sleepwatcher /usr/local/sbin
$ sudo cp ~/Desktop/sleepwatcher_2.2/sleepwatcher.8 /usr/local/share/man/man8

Once installed, run it in daemon mode:

$ /usr/local/sbin/sleepwatcher -d --sleep /path/to/your/sleepscript --wakeup /path/to/your/wakeupscript

If testing is needed run it in verbose mode:

$ /usr/local/sbin/sleepwatcher --verbose --sleep /path/to/your/sleepscript --wakeup /path/to/your/wakeupscript

A simple hello/goodbye script

Now that sleepwatcher is installed, let’s make the computer say Welcome back, <yourname> on wake and Goodbye on sleep. Two files are needed for this:

• sleepscript – script that runs when the computer sleeps
• wakescript – script that runs when the computer wakes

The scripts can be placed anywhere but the standard place would be to place them in /Users/<username>/bin. The bin folder should contain:

• /Users/<username>/bin/sleepscript
• /Users/<username>/bin/wakescript

The scripts should contain:

Sleep Script

function say_goodbye {
	say -v Vicki "goodbye"
}
say_goodbye

Wake Script

function say_hello {
	say -v Vicki "Welcome back, username"
}
say_hello

Make sure to chmod the scripts to 775. Next, launch the daemon to test:

$ /usr/local/sbin/sleepwatcher -d --sleep /Users/<username>/bin/sleepscript --wakeup /Users/<username>/bin/wakescript

Demo

Here is a video demo showing my Macbook Air saying “Welcome back” and “Goodbye”. 1337!

Happy Coding!