Run a list of bash scripts consecutively - bash

I have a load of bash scripts that backup different directories to different locations. I want each one to run every day. However, I want to make they don't run simultaneously.
I've wrote a script that basically just calls each script in succession and sits in cron.daily, but I want a way for this script to work even if I add and remove backup scripts without having to manually edit it.
So what I need to go is generate a list of the scripts (e.g. "dir -1 /usr/bin/backup*.sh") and then run each script it finds in turn.
Thanks.

#!/bin/sh
for script in /usr/bin/backup*.sh
do
$script
done

#!/bin/bash
for SCRIPT in /usr/bin/backup*.sh
do
[ -x "$SCRIPT" ] && [ -f "$SCRIPT" ] && $SCRIPT
done

If your system has run-parts then that will take care of it for you. You can name your scripts like "10script", "20anotherscript" and they will be run in order in a manner similar to the rc*.d hierarchy (which is run via init or Upstart, however). On some systems it's a script. On mine it's a binary executable.
It is likely that your system is using it to run hourly, daily, etc., cron jobs just by dropping scripts into directories such as /etc/cron.hourly/
Pay particular attention, though, to how you name your scripts. (Don't use dots, for example.) Check the man page specific to your system, since file naming restrictions may vary.

Related

run second ksh script after first ksh is done

I have 3 scripts for example: first.ksh, second.ksh, third.ksh.
I run all of those scripts one by one manually, when the first is done I run the second and then also the third. those scripts take time to run, doing them manually is time-consuming because is required me to be in front of the computer.
how can write a script or query which runs those scripts one by one, after one is finished, automatically?
Assuming the scripts are in the current working directory,
./first.sh ; ./second.sh ; ./third.sh
Where ; is the separator for "sequential list"
The topic you're looking for is "shell programming". There are many Unix shells, and they share basic features defined by POSIX and Single Unix Specification. Most of them have additional features as well as online documentations.

Script for running multiple Make Commands

I would like to get insight on how to get started or what general direction to look in when trying to make a script or makefile that will run 3 make commands at once that take in the same input. These three commands all ask for the same input but just output different excel files due to it manipulating the pulled data in different ways. Therefore If I were able to create a script or makefile that ran all three commands at once when giving the input one time it would SAVE ME A TON OF TIME.
This is all being done in putty pretty much (in terms of the commands)
Thanks,
NP
You want to use a shell script.
For instance, you can create run.sh with:
#!/bin/bash
make FLAG1=ON $*
make FLAG2=ON $*
make FLAG3=ON $*
Make it executable and do `./run.sh MYCOMMOFLAG1=ON MYCOMMONFLAG2=OFF...

Define a Increment variable in shell script that increments on every cronjob

I have searched the forum couldn't find one.can we define a variable that only increments on every cronjob run?
for example:
i have a script that runs every 5minutes so i need a variable that increments based on the cron run
Say if the job ran 5minutes for minutes. so 6 times the script got executed so my counter variable should be 6 now
Im expecting in bash/shell
Apologies if a duplicate question
tried:
((count+1))
You can do it this way:
create two scripts: counter.sh and increment_counter.sh
add execution of increment_counter.sh in your cron job
add . /path/to/counter.sh into /etc/profile or /etc/bash.bashrc or wherever you need
counter.sh
declare -i COUNTER
COUNTER=1
export COUNTER
increment_counter.sh
#!/bin/bash
echo "COUNTER=\$COUNTER+1" >> /path/to/counter.sh
The shell that you've run the command in has exited; any variables it has set have gone away. You can't use variables for this purpose.
What you need is some sort of permanent data store. This could be a database, or a remote network service, or a variety of things, but by far the simplest solution is to store the value in a file somewhere on disk. Read the file in when the script starts and write out the incremented value afterwards.
You should think about what to do if the file is missing and what happens if multiple copies of the script are run at the same time, and decide whether those are situations you care about at all. If they are, you'll need to add appropriate error handling and locking, respectively, in your script.
Wouldn't this be a better solution?
...to define a file under /tmp, such that a command like:
echo -n "." > $MyCounterFilename
Tracks the number of times something is invoked, in my particular case of app.:
#!/bin/bash
xterm [ Options ] -T "$(cat $MyCounterFilename | wc -c )" &
echo -n "." > $MyCounterFilename
Because i had to modify the way xterm is invoked for my purposes and i found already that having opened many of these concurrently one waste less time if knowing exactly what is running on each one by its number (without having to cycle alt+tab and eye inspect through everything).
NOTE: /etc/profile, or better either ~/.profile or ~/.bash_profile needs only a env. variable name defined containing the full path to your counter file.
Anyway, if you dont like the idea above, experiments might be performed to determine a) 1st time out of all that /etc/profile is executed since machine is powered on and system boots. 2) Wether /etc/profile is executed or not, and how many times (Each time we open an xterm?, for instance). ... thereafter the same sort of testing for the other dudes lesser general than /etc one.

bash script rsync itself from remote host - how to?

I have multiple remote sites which run a bash script, initiated by cron (running VERY frequently -- 10 minutes or less), in which one of it's jobs is to sync a "scripts" directory. The idea is for me to be able to edit the scripts in one location (a server in a data center) rather than having to log into each remote site and doing any edits manually. The question is, what are the best options for syncing the script that is currently running the sync? (I hope that's clear).
I would imagine syncing a script that is currently running would be very bad. Does the following look feasible if I run it as the last statement of my script? pros? cons? Other options??
if [ -e ${newScriptPath} ]; then
mv ${newScriptPath} ${permanentPath}" | at "now + 1 minute"
fi
One problem I see is that it's possible that if I use "1 minute" (which is "at's" smallest increment), and the script ends, and cron initiates the next job before "at" replaces the script, it could try to replace it during the next run of the script....
Changing the script file during execution is indeed dangerous (see this previous answer), but there's a trick that (at least with the versions of bash I've tested with) forces bash to read the entire script into memory, so if it changes during execution there won't be any effect. Just wrap the script in {}, and use an explicit exit (inside the {}) so if anything gets added to the end of the file it won't be executed:
#!/bin/bash
{
# Actual script contents go here
exit
}
Warning: as I said, this works on the versions of bash I have tested it with. I make no promises about other versions, or other shells. Test it with the shell(s) you'll be using before putting it into production use.
Also, is there any risk that any of the other scripts will be running during the sync process? If so, you either need to use this trick with all of them, or else find some general way to detect which scripts are in use and defer updates on them until later.
So I ended up using the "at" utility, but only if the file changed. I have a ".cur" and ".new" version of the script on the local machine. If the MD5 is the same on both, I do nothing. If they are different, I wait until after the main script completes, then force copy the ".new" to the ".cur" in a different script.
I create the same lock file (name) for the update_script so another instance of the first script won't run if I'm changing it..
part in main script....
file1=`script_cur.sh`
file2=`script_new.sh`
if [ "$file1" == "$file2" ] ; then
echo "Files have the same content"
else
echo "Files are different, scheduling update_script.sh at command"
at -f update_script.sh now + 1 minute
fi

How to test things in crontab

This keeps happening to me all the time:
1) I write a script(ruby, shell, etc).
2) run it, it works.
3) put it in crontab so it runs in a few minutes so I know it runs from there.
4) It doesnt, no error trace, back to step 2 or 3 a 1000 times.
When I ruby script fails in crontab, I can't really know why it fails cause when I pipe output like this:
ruby script.rb >& /path/to/output
I sorta get the output of the script, but I don't get any of the errors from it and I don't get the errors coming from bash (like if ruby is not found or file isn't there)
I have no idea what environmental variables are set and whether or not it's a problem. Turns out that to run a ruby script from crontab you have to export a ton of environment variables.
Is there a way for me to just have crontab run a script as if I ran it myself from my terminal?
When debugging, I have to reset the timer and go back to waiting. Very time consuming.
How to test things in crontab better or avoid these problems?
"Is there a way for me to just have crontab run a script as if I ran it myself from my terminal?"
Yes:
bash -li -c /path/to/script
From the man page:
[vindaloo:pgl]:~/p/test $ man bash | grep -A2 -m1 -- -i
-i If the -i option is present, the shell is interactive.
-l Make bash act as if it had been invoked as a login shell (see
INVOCATION below).
G'day,
One of the basic problems with cron is that you get a minimal environment being set by cron. In fact, you only get four env. var's set and they are:
SHELL - set to /bin/sh
LOGNAME - set to your userid as found in /etc/passwd
HOME - set to your home dir. as found in /etc/passwd
PATH - set to "/usr/bin:/bin"
That's it.
However, what you can do is take a snapshot of the environment you want and save that to a file.
Now make your cronjob source a trivial shell script that sources this env. file and then executes your Ruby script.
BTW Having a wrapper source a common env. file is an excellent way to enforce a consistent environment for multiple cronjobs. This also enforces the DRY principle because it gives you just one point to update things as required, instead of having to search through a bunch of scripts and search for a specific string if, say, a logging location is changed or a different utility is now being used, e.g. gnutar instead of vanilla tar.
Actually, this technique is used very successfully with The Build Monkey which is used to implement Continuous Integration for a major software project that is common to several major world airlines. 3,500kSLOC being checked out and built several times a day and over 8,000 regression tests run once a day.
HTH
'Avahappy,
Run a 'set' command from inside of the ruby script, fire it from crontab, and you'll see exactly what's set and what's not.
To find out the environment in which cron runs jobs, add this cron job:
{ echo "\nenv\n" && env|sort ; echo "\nset\n" && set; } | /usr/bin/mailx -s 'my env' you#example.com
Or send the output to a file instead of email.
You could write a wrapper script, called for example rbcron, which looks something like:
#!/bin/bash
RUBY=ruby
export VAR1=foo
export VAR2=bar
export VAR3=baz
$RUBY "$*" 2>&1
This will redirect standard error from ruby to the standard output. Then you run rbcron in your cron job, and the standard output contains out+err of ruby, but also the "bash" errors existing from rbcron itself. In your cron entry, redirect 2>&1 > /path/to/output to get output+error messages to go to /path/to/output.
If you really want to run it as yourself, you may want to invoke ruby from a shell script that sources your .profile/.bashrc etc. That way it'll pull in your environment.
However, the downside is that it's not isolated from your environment, and if you change that, you may find your cron jobs suddenly stop working.

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