when I run the below command, it ran fine:

ssh SERVER_NAME "ps -ef |grep oam_server1" > ../Logs/oam_status.txt


however, when I put the exact command into the korn shell, it complain:

grep: unknown devices method


I believed I missed some quote or something.

Please advise.....
thanks,

You need a space between the '|' and 'grep', I'm guessing

I did but still doesn't work.


any other thoughts?

Perhaps try ssh-ing into the box:

and then running the command:

so we can see which bit of it is causing the problem...

?

If I run ps -ef on another line, it will think I am looking for the process on server I am issuing the command. I need to look for the process on the remote server (which I used ssh), don't know why the command itself worked but it's not happy when I put it in ksh.

made the changes and no luck, below is the error:

ERROR: Garbage option.
********* simple selection ********* ********* selection by list *********
-A all processes -C by command name
-N negate selection -G by real group ID (supports names)
-a all w/ tty except session leaders -U by real user ID (supports names)
-d all except session leaders -g by session OR by effec....
...............

The remote host is complaining about the format of the arguments to the ps command. Is the remote host a Solaris or other non-GNU/Linux host, perhaps? On some architectures, ps is a bit of an odd dog. I forget the whole story, but there are two versions of ps, and one or the other is run depending on something or other, like the shell (C-shell vs. Bourne shell) since each are configured with different $PATHs. To complicate matters, one of them tries to emulate the other if it senses that it is being launched by some other shell.
The upshot is that I think you can disambiguate which ps is being run by specifying the full filespec of the program that works properly for you. Still, your script may be sensitive to the user who runs it, since that will dictate which shell is being used to launch ps.
--- rod.

As I said, if I run the command not within .ksh then it worked

This is quite ambiguous. 'the command' is actually a script or command that runs another command on a different host. Or is 'the command' the one you are running on the remote host? How are you controlling which shell is being used?

What you are saying sounds consistent with my suggestion that different versions of ps are being launched. Each of them takes arguments of different formats. Try your two (or more) scenarios with the command 'which ps', rather than actually lauching ps. Try running 'ps --help' and or 'ps --version' to see if there is any difference or consistency.

--- rod.

Not unless you close the session. For example:

In addition to rod's suggestions, when you're talking about shells, are you talking about your local host or your remote host? i.e. is ksh the shell on the computer on the desktop sitting in front of you, or the server you're ssh-ing into?

Here is what I want to do in my code, maybe it's wrong so it gave me issue:


..........
ssh SERVER_NAME "ps -ef | grep oam_server1" > ../Logs/oam_status.txt
if [[ -n `ls $LogDir/oam_status.txt 2>&1 |grep "blah"` ]] ; then
do something............

basic I want to ssh to remote server to find whether the process running then write the output to the log file (log file reside on the local machine) and I think that's the problem.......

Since Scripting News has a deep technical focus, I wanted to point out that there is some deep tech that connects the pieces here.

It's not necessary in any way.

But it's this line which isn't working, giving the error, yes? It runs fine on my computer

Did you try the things which Nbomr suggested? What about my questions about shells?

And if it is the shell that's the problem, and this is in a script (as your code snippet suggests) could you not just change '#!/usr/bin/env ksh' (or whatever you have) to '#!/usr/bin/env bash'?