How to run a script in background in Linux. - shell scripting - shell

A script that keeps updating the log file. data like system time and date, users currently logged in etc for every interval of time say 5 minutes. THE SCRIPT MUST RUN EVEN AFTER THE TERMINAL HAS BEEN CLOSED.

Actually, no.
First of, you don't need sh:
$ ./newscript.sh &
This is enough. This will start a background process. But your terminal is still controlling it. To achieve the behavior you want, do this:
$ disown %1
This will disown the job with the jobspec 1 (which is like an id), which was the one you started beforehand. Now you can close the terminal.

Hurrah!! I would like to answer my question since i have got the solution.
For example, I'm running a script newscript.sh I want to run this in background and continue someother job in the terminal or i can close the terminal.
[yourname # username ~]$ sh newscript.sh &
and hit enter. You will get a PID and your job will be attached to the background.
To kill the same process, use the PID
For eg.,
kill 1205212
Thank you.

Related

Neovim process spawned from fish script terminates immediately

I'm trying to achieve the following:
from a fish script, open a PDF reader as a background job. Once it is opened, spawn another fish process (that runs an infinite while loop), also as a background job.
Next, open an editor (neovim) and allow it to take control of the running terminal. Once neovim terminates, also suspend the previous 2 background jobs (mupdf and the other fish process).
My current attempt looks something along the lines of:
mupdf $pdfpath &
set pid_mupdf $last_pid
fish -c "while inotifywait ...; [logic to rebuild the pdf file..]; end" &
set pid_sub $last_pid
nvim $mdpath && kill -2 $pid_mudf $pid_sub
First I open mupdf as a background job and save its PID in a variable. Next I spawn the other fish process, also as a background job, and I save its PID as well.
Next I run nvim (but not as a background job, as I intend to actually control it), and after it is terminated by the user, I gracefully kill the previous 2 background jobs.
However this doesn't work as intended.
mupdf and the second fish process open successfully, and so does nvim, but it quickly closes after around half a second, after which I get the following in the controlling terminal window: image (bote is just the filename of the script from which the lines above originate)
The 2 background processes stay running after that and I have to kill them manually.
I understand that the script is sent a SIGHUP because the controlling terminal now executes another application (neovim), but why does neovim close after that?
I also tried disowning the background processes after they're spawned but that didn't help.
How would I solve this issue?
The problem is that $last_pid, in fish 3, and %last, in fish 2, doesn't work by default in scripts. See https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/5036. You can "fix" this by putting status job-control full at the top of the script or using the (jobs -lp) hack that Glenn mentioned.
Regarding the background process remaining running... I can't reproduce that. It works for me. However, note that your nvim && kill will only run the kill if nvim exits with a status of zero. If you always want the kill to be run you should just unconditionally execute it. Also, your use of signal two (SIGINT) should produce the desired result but is unusual. You should use kill -15 or just omit the signal in which case it defaults to 15 (SIGTERM).
You're getting the PID incorrectly. The $pid_mudf and $pid_sub variables are empty. You want
set pid_mupdf (jobs -lp)

Terminal - Close all terminal windows/processes

I have a couple cli-based scripts that run for some time.
I'd like another script to 'restart' those other scripts.
I've checked SO for answers, but the scenarios were not applicable enough to mine, as I'm trying to end Terminal processes using Terminal.
Process:
2 cli-based scripts are running (node, python, etc).
3rd script is run and decides whether or not to restart the other 2.
This can't quit Terminal, but has to end current processes.
3rd script then runs an executable that restarts everything.
Currently none of the terminal windows are named, and from reading the other posts, I can see that it may be helpful to do so.
I can mostly set this up, I just could not find a command that would end all other terminal processes and close them.
There are a couple of ways to do this. Most common is having a pidfile.
This file contains the process ID (pid) of the job you want to kill
later on. A simple way to create the pidfile is:
$ node server &
$ echo $! > /tmp/node.pidfile
$! contains the pid of the process that was most recently backgrounded.
Then later on, you kill it like so:
$ kill `cat /tmp/node.pidfile`
You would do similar for the python script.
The other less robust way is to do a killall for each process and assume you are not running similar node or python jobs.
Refer to
What is a .pid file and what does it contain? if you're not familiar with this.
The question headline is quite general, so is my reply
killall bash
or generically
killall processName
eg. killall chrome

executing a script which runs even if i log off

So, I have a long running script (of order few days) say execute.sh which I am planning to execute on a server on which I have a user account...
Now, I want to execute this script so that it runs forever even if I logoff or disconnect from the server??
How do i do that?
THanks
You have a couple of choices. The most basic would be to use nohup:
nohup ./execute.sh
nohup executes the command as a child process and detaches from terminal and continues running if it receives SIGHUP. This signal means sig hangup and will getting triggered if you close a terminal and a process is still attached to it.
The output of the process will getting redirected to a file, per default nohup.out located in the current directory.
You may also use bash's disown functionality. You can start a script in bash:
./execute.sh
Then press Ctrl+z and then enter:
disown
The process will now run in background, detached from the terminal. If you care about the scripts output you may redirect output to a logfile:
./execute.sh > execute.log 2>&1
Another option would be to install screen on the remote machine, run the command in a screen session and detach from it. You'll find a lot of tutorials about this.
nohup (no hangup) it and run it in the background:
nohup execute.sh &
Output that normally would have gone to the screen (STDOUT) will go to a file called nohup.out.

Multiple process from one bash script [duplicate]

I'm trying to use a shell script to start a command. I don't care if/when/how/why it finishes. I want the process to start and run, but I want to be able to get back to my shell immediately...
You can just run the script in the background:
$ myscript &
Note that this is different from putting the & inside your script, which probably won't do what you want.
Everyone just forgot disown. So here is a summary:
& puts the job in the background.
Makes it block on attempting to read input, and
Makes the shell not wait for its completion.
disown removes the process from the shell's job control, but it still leaves it connected to the terminal.
One of the results is that the shell won't send it a SIGHUP(If the shell receives a SIGHUP, it also sends a SIGHUP to the process, which normally causes the process to terminate).
And obviously, it can only be applied to background jobs(because you cannot enter it when a foreground job is running).
nohup disconnects the process from the terminal, redirects its output to nohup.out and shields it from SIGHUP.
The process won't receive any sent SIGHUP.
Its completely independent from job control and could in principle be used also for foreground jobs(although that's not very useful).
Usually used with &(as a background job).
nohup cmd
doesn't hangup when you close the terminal. output by default goes to nohup.out
You can combine this with backgrounding,
nohup cmd &
and get rid of the output,
nohup cmd > /dev/null 2>&1 &
you can also disown a command. type cmd, Ctrl-Z, bg, disown
Alternatively, after you got the program running, you can hit Ctrl-Z which stops your program and then type
bg
which puts your last stopped program in the background. (Useful if your started something without '&' and still want it in the backgroung without restarting it)
screen -m -d $command$ starts the command in a detached session. You can use screen -r to attach to the started session. It is a wonderful tool, extremely useful also for remote sessions. Read more at man screen.

how to send ssh job to background

I logged in to a remote server via ssh and started a php script. Appereantly, it will take 17 hours to complete, is there a way to break the connection but the keep the script executing? I didn't make any output redirection, so I am seeing all the output.
Can you stop the process right now? If so, launch screen, start the process and detach screen using ctrl-a then ctrl-d. Use screen -r to retrieve the session later.
This should be available in most distros, failing that, a package will definitely be available for you.
ctrl + z
will pause it. Than type
bg
to send it to background. Write down the PID of the process for later usage ;)
EDIT: I forgot, you have to execute
disown -$PID
where $PID is the pid of your process
after that, and the process will not be killed after you close the terminal.
you described it's important to protect script continuation. Unfortunately I don't know, you make any interaction with script and script is made by you.
continuation protects 'screen' command. your connection will break, but screen protect pseudo terminal, you can reconnect to this later, see man.
if you don't need operators interaction with script, you simply can put script to background at the start, and log complete output into log file. Simply use command:
nohup /where/is/your.script.php >output.log 2&>1 &
>output.log will redirect output into log file, 2&>1 will append error stream into output, effectively into log file. last & will put command into background. Notice, nohup command will detach process from terminal group.
At now you can safely exit from ssh shell. Because your script is out of terminal group, then it won't be killed. It will be rejoined from your shell process, into system INIT process. It is unix like system behavior. Complete output you can monitor using command
tail -f output.log #allways breakable by ^C, it is only watching
Using this method you do not need use ^Z , bg etc shell tricks for putting command to the background.
Notice, using redirection to nohup command is preferred. Otherwise nohup will auto redirect all outputs for you to nohup.out file in the current directory.
You can use screen.

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