Shell script: inject command into existing running terminal process - linux

I have a situation where there is a running terminal process. I can find the PID of the terminal. I want to inject a command s.t. it runs and prints output in the target terminal process. I tried the following:
# Assuming terminal with PID is running in a different window
$ echo "ls\n" > /proc/PID/fd/0
This just prints the string in the second terminal window. How can I send a command (like ls) and then an enter key press into the second terminal window ? Thanks

If you have xdotool installed ;
$ xdotool search --pid 2981 # 2981 being the PID of terminal, not shell
60817444
$ xdotool windowfocus --sync 60817444 type $'ls\n'

Related

In a script how to get the pid of spawned terminal's shell to execute commands in it using ttyecho?

I am using ttyecho (can be installed with yay -S ttyecho-git) to execute a command in a separate terminal like so:
urxvt &
sudo ttyecho -n /proc/<pid-of-new-urxvt>/fd/0 <command>
It does not work because the /proc/pid-of-new-urxvt/fd/0 is a symlink that points to the /dev/pts/x of the parent terminal.
In the spawned urxvt I happen to run zsh. So if I use the pid of that zsh process it works:
sudo ttyecho -n /proc/<pid-of-new-zsh-within-new-urxvt>/fd/0 <command>
How can I get the pid of the new zsh process spawned within the new urxvt process when I run urxvt & ? Or is there a different solution to achieve the same result?
pgrep -P <pid-of-new-urxvt> gives the pid of the child zsh process.
Thx to #user1934428 for the brainstorming
Here is the resulting bash script:
urxvt &
term_pid=$!
# sleep here makes us wait until the child shell in the terminal is started
sleep 0.1
# we retrieve the pid of the shell launched in the new terminal
shell_pid=$(pgrep -P $term_pid)
# ttyecho executes the command in the shell of the new terminal and gives back control of the terminal so you can run further commands manually
sudo ttyecho -n /proc/${shell_pid}/fd/0 "$#"
So when I launch "script ls" it opens a new terminal, runs ls, and gives back the prompt with the terminal still open.
I just had to add ttyecho in the sudoers file.

how to create and move between screens in a bash.sh script [duplicate]

Was wondering how I can start up a command such as:
while :; do ./myCommand; done;
But instead of doing the usual
screen -S nameOfMyScreen
Then the command
while :; do ./myCommand; done;
Then detach the screen
^a ^d (Control "a" the control "d"
I would like it to start and detach. Thanks!
screen -d -m sh -c "while :; do ./myCommand; done;"
Explanation:
-d -m starts screen in detached mode (create session but don't attach to it)
sh -c commandline starts a shell which executes the given command line (necessary, since you are using the while builtin).
From screen -h, these look useful:
-dmS name Start as daemon: Screen session in detached mode.
-X Execute <cmd> as a screen command in the specified session.
I haven't done this myself, but that's where I'd start.
Update:
The top of the help also says
Use: path/to/screen [-opts] [cmd [args]]
so the -X switch may be to execute a screen command as opposed to a shell command. You might just be able to put your command after the -dmS <name> without any -X switch.

Linux. launch python script from .config/upstart/ in a visible terminal

If i add a launcher in .config/upstart like:
start_python.conf
start on desktop-start
exec python myscript.py
stop on desktop-end
myscript.py is basically a neverending while-loop that does some voodoo...
If i try the above will it start when the machine boots up.
But it is invisible (can be found with ps aux | grep python after boot).
I want it launched in a visible terminal window so i can monitor it. How do i do that?
Your terminal application should have option accepting command to run within, see man terminal-app-name or terminal-app-name --help. There is Konsole example:
konsole -e python myscript.py
I suppose you have gnome-terminal as a default terminal emulator, so either
gnome-terminal --command="python myscript.py"
or
gnome-terminal --execute python myscript.py
should work.

How to watch python script which runs in background?

Im running python script in background on ubuntu linux with this command:
python script.py &
When Im closing terminal, its run on background
But how I can watch what script.py output, when opening terminal again?
There is many options for monitor the script in background.
First, run Screen command if you would like to disconnect the terminal. If you disconnect your terminal your script process will be an exit.
$ screen
$ python script.py &
Disconnect your terminal
$ screen -ls
Copy the PID and run the below command
$ screen -r PID
You are able to see your script output.
Several Options:
Use a tool like tmux
Use tail -f on the log file
Direct stdout to a file and use tail -f on it
python script.py > /tmp/logfile &
then later:
tail -f /tmp/logfile
Use screen to run your python script

How can place a job of linux terminal to background after enter password?

I use this command in linux terminal to connect to a server and use it as proxy :
ssh -N -D 7070 root#ip_address
it's get the password and connect and everything is Ok but how can I put this process in background ?
I used CTRL+Z but it stop not put this process in background ...
CTRL-Z is doing exactly what it should, which is stop the process. If you then want to put it in the background, the shell command for doing that is bg:
$ ssh -N -D 7070 -l user 192.168.1.51
user#192.168.1.51's password:
^Z
[1]+ Stopped ssh -N -D 7070 -l mjfraioli 192.168.1.51
$ bg
[1]+ ssh -N -D 7070 -l user 192.168.1.51 &
That way you can enter the password interactively, and only once that is complete, stop it and put it into the background.
Try adding an ampersand to the end of your command:
ssh -N -D 7070 root#ip_address &
Explanation:
This trailing ampersand directs the shell to run the command in the background, that is, it is forked and run in a separate sub-shell, as a job, asynchronously. The shell will immediately return the return status of 0 for true and continue as normal, either processing further commands in a script or returning the cursor focus back to the user in a Linux terminal.
The shell will print out the forked process’s job number and process ID (PID) like so:
$ ./myscript.py &
[1] 1337
The stdout of the forked process will still be attached to the parent, so any output will still appear in your terminal.
After a process is forked using a single trailing ampersand &, its process ID (PID) is stored in a special variable $!. This can be used later to refer to the process:
$ echo $!
1337
Once a process is forked, it can be seen in the jobs list:
$ jobs
[1]+ Running ./myscript.py &
And it can be brought back to the command line before it finishes with the foreground command:
fg
The foreground command takes an optional argument of the job number, if you have forked multiple processes.
A single ampersand & can also delimit a list of commands to be run asynchronously.
./script.py & ./script2.py & ./script3.py &
In this example, all 3 python scripts are run at the same time, in separate sub-shells. Their stdout will still be attached to the parent shell, so if running this from a Linux terminal, you will still see the outputs.
This can also be used as a quick hack to take advantage of multiple cores with shell scripts, but be warned, it is a hack!
To detach a process completely from the shell, you may want to pipe the stdout and stderr to a file or to /dev/null. A nice way of doing this is with the nohup command.
source for above explanation: http://bashitout.com/2013/05/18/Ampersands-on-the-command-line.html
You can add option -f to make the ssh command run in background.
So the answer is ssh -f -D port username#hostname -N.

Resources