shell script switching it self into background process

knockout_artist · 11-23-2007, 10:55 PM

Good Day,

I need a shell script which after performing its primary tasks switch it self into a background process for to min. and then exit.

like

Code:

mount /nfs/remote/parition
display message"so and so is mounted for you"
switch to background process giving command prompt.

then
it shows prompt to user
user#

Code:

(in background)
wait for 4 mins.
kill few processes
exit

Thank you.

Note:All this hassle because we only have one console(init 3).

unSpawn · 11-24-2007, 03:15 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by knockout_artist

Note:All this hassle because we only have one console(init 3).

How about using 'screen' instead, then?

jlinkels · 11-24-2007, 06:29 AM

Well, backgrounding the script is easy. Just put an '&' at the end of the command line when you call the script.

Any messages of your script piped to stsout will show up on you console. Those piped to /dev/null won't.

Use sleep to suspend the script for the delay action.

After the script is finished waiting, it can exit.

A backgrounded script doesn't differ in anything from a fg running script except that it cannot receive kbd input. Writing to stderr still works, stdout I am not sure.

jlinkels

PTrenholme · 11-24-2007, 11:33 AM

And, within a script, you can start a child process and then disown it. Here's an example (written because the JSView Firefox extension assumes that any "executable" has an ".exe" extension, and this was easier than fixing the extension code.)

Code:

$ cat Scripts/kate.exe
#!/bin/bash
kate $* &
disown -h

The code starts kate, disowns it after telling the child to ignore hangup, and then exits.