executing a script which runs even if i log off - bash

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.

Related

Execute bash script that will continue though Apache restarts

I need to have a bash script triggered and run, but part of the script requires Apache to restart. This obviously kills the script from continuing. I can't move the restarts in the script to the end
I have tried to run the bash scrip though a php script using shell_exec() in a GNU screen session to keep it going but that doesn't work. as soon as Apache goes down the script stops.
There has to be a way to do this but I'm not seeing it.
How I can accomplish this?
Does nohup do the job?
nohup is a POSIX command which means "no hang up". Its purpose is to execute a command such that it ignores the HUP (hangup) signal and therefore does not stop when the user logs out.
Output that would normally go to the terminal goes to a file called nohup.out, if it has not already been redirected.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nohup

How to run shell script on VM indefinitely?

I have a VM that I want running indefinitely. The server is always running but I want the script to keep running after I log out. How would I go about doing so? Creating a cron job?
In general the following steps are sufficient to convince most Unix shells that the process you're launching should not depend on the continued existence of the shell:
run the command under nohup
run the command in the background
redirect all file descriptors that normally point to the terminal to other locations
So, if you want to run command-name, you should do it like so:
nohup command-name >/dev/null 2>/dev/null </dev/null &
This tells the process that will execute command-name to send all stdout and stderr to nowhere (instead of to your terminal) and also to read stdin from nowhere (instead of from your terminal). Of course if you actually have locations to write to/read from, you can certainly use those instead -- anything except the terminal is fine:
nohup command-name >outputFile 2>errorFile <inputFile &
See also the answer in Petur's comment, which discusses this issue a fair bit.

Strange behavior of "Run in terminal", it kills processes

I wrote a shell script that runs a service. I open the terminal, I run the script that runs the service and, after the script ends, I close the terminal but the service keeps running, and this is what I want.
Anyway, if I run the script through the Gnome command "Run in terminal", when the terminal closes, also the service is killed.
That's very strange, I can't understand why and I'm not able to solve this problem.
Any ideas?
Try executing
nohup ./shell_script &
nohup command makes the process continue executing even after the terminal has closed, ignoring the SIGHUP signal.
Note the script will execute in the background, and the output will be appended to a file.

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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