Simple script to wait for another script

Maverick1182 · 11-04-2007, 01:16 PM

Hi there,

I have the need to run three different bash scripts on three different computers (which is slightly different for each computer) via ssh and then I want to run a command ONLY after all of these scripts have finished.

I was wondering if there was a way in the bash script to tell it to wait until the other scripts have finished successfully before it executes the final line. I know this is usually done by starting the command from the next line, but if we are using ssh to login to a remote machine and then run a script, how would we know if it has completed? So the order of things I want to do are:

ssh into comp1
run startscript1
ssh into comp2
run startscript2
ssh into comp3
run startscript3

<< I want the scripts to all run simultaneously rather than in a specific order >>
wait until all three scripts are finished
run final command

I have setup RSA keys so that I can login without passwords to each machine.. I was wondering I could implement the waiting in the bash script....

Any ideas?

ilikejam · 11-04-2007, 02:06 PM

No problem.

Code:

ssh comp1 "startscript1" &
ssh comp2 "startscript2" &
ssh comp3 "startscript3" &
wait
finalcommand

Dave

colucix · 11-04-2007, 02:19 PM

A little add-on: it may be useful to know that you can catch the process ID of the last job running in background by means of $!. This is useful if you want to wait for a specific job only, as in

Code:

my_command &
pid=$!
my_other_command &
wait $pid

The process IDs can be retrieved by jobs -p, too.

poet_imp · 11-04-2007, 02:47 PM

This is not 100% tested but should work:

Code:

#!/usr/bin/perl -w
use strict;

my @cmdlist = ("ssh localhost 'sleep 5;echo task 1 done'",
               "ssh localhost 'sleep 7;echo task 2 done'",
               "ssh localhost 'sleep 9;echo task 3 done'",
              );

my @childPids = ();

for(my $i=0; $i < @cmdlist; $i++)
{
   print "Spawing command: $cmdlist[$i]\n";

   my $pid = fork();

   if ($pid) # parent
   {
      push(@childPids, $pid);
   }
   elsif ($pid == 0) # child
   {
      system($cmdlist[$i]);
      exit(0);
   }
   else
   {
      die "Unable to fork process: $!\n";
   }
}

print "Wait for all tasks to finish\n";
foreach my $pid (@childPids)
{
   waitpid($pid, 0);
}

system("ssh localhost echo 'final command'");

You will, of course, need to update the commands in the array and at the end of the script.

Maverick1182 · 11-05-2007, 03:45 AM

Wow, thanks for the detailed help everyone. So even somehting as simple as ssh localhost script & with a wait command at the end will wait for all of those processes to finish running before it runs the last command? Linux gets cooler and cooler by the minute! I have to find time to create the script I need but thanks for the templates. It's really helped!