can shell script make itself run in background after running some steps? - linux

Question

I have BBB based custom Embedded Linux based board with busybox shell(ash)
I have a situation where my script must run in background with following condition
There must only one instance of the script.
wrapper script need to know if script started successfully in background or not.
There is another wrapper script which starts and stops my script, wrapper script is as mentioned below.
#!/bin/sh
export PATH=/bin:/sbin:/usr/bin:/usr/sbin
readonly TEST_SCRIPT_PATH="/home/testscript.sh"
readonly TEST_SCRIPT_LOCK_PATH="/var/run/${TEST_SCRIPT_PATH##*/}.lock"
start_test_script()
{
local pid_of_testscript=0
local status=0
#Run test script in background
"${TEST_SCRIPT_PATH}" &
#---------Now When this point is hit, lock file must be created.-----
if [ -f "${TEST_SCRIPT_LOCK_PATH}" ];then
pid_of_testscript=$(head -n1 ${TEST_SCRIPT_LOCK_PATH})
if [ -n "${pid_of_testscript}" ];then
kill -0 ${pid_of_testscript} &> /dev/null || status="${?}"
if [ ${status} -ne 0 ];then
echo "Error starting testscript"
else
echo "testscript start successfully"
fi
else
echo "Error starting testscript.sh"
fi
fi
}
stop_test_script()
{
local pid_of_testscript=0
local status=0
if [ -f "${TEST_SCRIPT_LOCK_PATH}" ];then
pid_of_testscript=$(head -n1 ${TEST_SCRIPT_LOCK_PATH})
if [ -n "${pid_of_testscript}" ];then
kill -0 ${pid_of_testscript} &> /dev/null || status="${?}"
if [ ${status} -ne 0 ];then
echo "testscript not running"
rm "${TEST_SCRIPT_LOCK_PATH}"
else
#send SIGTERM signal
kill -SIGTERM "${pid_of_testscript}"
fi
fi
fi
}
#Script starts from here.
case ${1} in
'start')
start_test_script
;;
'stop')
stop_test_script
;;
*)
echo "Usage: ${0} [start|stop]"
exit 1
;;
esac
Now actual script "testscript.sh" looks something like this,
#!/bin/sh
#Filename : testscript.sh
export PATH=/bin:/sbin:/usr/bin:/usr/sbin
set -eu
LOCK_FILE="/var/run/${0##*/}.lock"
FLOCK_CMD="/bin/flock"
FLOCK_ID=200
eval "exec ${FLOCK_ID}>>${LOCK_FILE}"
"${FLOCK_CMD}" -n "${FLOCK_ID}" || exit 0
echo "${$}" > "${LOCK_FILE}"
# >>>>>>>>>>-----Now run the code in background---<<<<<<
handle_sigterm()
{
# cleanup
"${FLOCK_CMD}" -u "${FLOCK_ID}"
if [ -f "${LOCK_FILE}" ];then
rm "${LOCK_FILE}"
fi
}
trap handle_sigterm SIGTERM
while true
do
echo "do something"
sleep 10
done
Now in above script you can see "---Now run the code in background--" at that point I am sure that either lock file is successfully created or instance of this script is already running. So Then I can safely run other code in background and wrapper script can check for lockfile and find out if the process mentioned in the lock file is running or not.
can shellscript itself make it to run in background ?
if not is there a better way to meet all the conditions ?

Answer 1

I think you can look into job control built-in, specifically bg.
Job Control Commands

Answer 2

When processes say they background themselves, what they actually do is fork and exit the parent. You can do the same by running whichever commands, functions or statements you want with & and then exiting.
#!/bin/sh
echo "This runs in the foreground"
sleep 3
while true
do
sleep 10
echo "doing background things"
done &