If I open an ssh connection and start a long-running process, is there any way to close the ssh connection, and not only keep the process running, but be able to later ssh back in again, and "reattach" the process to the terminal?
I am able to do the following:
Ctrl-z
bg
disown
And that lets me keep the process running after I leave my ssh session, but I am not able to "reown" the job later; is there a way to do this? The real-world scenario is that I'd like to start a process at work, drive home, then log back in and check on it/interact with it.
I know that tmux is able to handle things like this, but I am often forgetful, or I just don't know ahead of time what process will be long-running and what won't, so I don't always remember to start the process from within tmux.
There are several ways to accomplish this. I used to use screen and that was a round about way of doing it. But check out mosh, built just for this: http://mosh.mit.edu/
Related
For a running script on a Linux VM with a regular console output: If I disconnect from the VM the output window disappears. If I restart the VM, the script is still running but how do I get back to the output-screen?
Easy solution: use GNU screen, or an alternative like tmux to run your scripts in a persistent session. Thus, if you accidentally disconnect from your SSH session (or must shut down your computer), you can still reattach to the screen session later.
Tutorial: Using GNU Screen to Manage Persistent Terminal Sessions
Another great feature is that screen can also log the console output to a file. I use it all the time for cron jobs or other unattended tasks. I also use screen for updates (using yum, dnf or whatever), because updates can take a lot of time, and sometimes may even have to restart the network service, which would terminate your SSH session.
I'm trying to create a simple Twitter bot to learn some Node.js skills.
It works fine on my local computer. I start the script with node bot.js and then close it with Ctrl + C.
I've uploaded the files to a server (Krystal hosting). I've ssh'd into the server and then used $ source /home/[username]/nodevenv/twitterbot/10/bin/activate. Which I think puts me into a Node environment (I'm not really clear what is happening here).
From here I can run node bot.js. My Twitter bot runs fine and I can leave the terminal. What I've realised now is that I don't know how to stop this script.
Can someone explain how I should be doing this? Is there a command I can enter to stop the original bot.js process? Since looking into this it looks like perhaps I should have used something like pm2 process manager. Is this correct?
Any pointers would be much appreciated.
Thanks,
B
You can kill it externally by nuking the process from an OS command line or in an OS GUI (exact procedure varies by OS). Ctrl-C from the shell is one version of this, but it can be done without the command shell that it was started in too by nuking the process directly.
Or, you can add a control port (a simple little http server running on a port only accessible locally) that accepts commands that let you do all sorts of things with the server such as extract statistics, shut it down, change the configuration, tell it to clear caches so content updates take effect immediately, etc... Shutting down the server this way allows for a more orderly shut-down from code within the server. You can even stop accepting incoming connections, but wait for existing http connections to complete before shutting down, close databases normally, etc...
Or, you can use a monitoring program such as PM2 or forever that in addition to restarting the server automatically if it should ever crash, they also offer commands for shutting it down too (which will just send it certain signals kind of like Ctrl-C does).
A process has been started remotely through a SSH session. The output stream (text) is displayed OK thru SSH. I would like to display the results locally without interrupting the running process.
Is there a way to attach to a running process and 'piggyback' a stream?
A Linux-only solution is acceptable.
Thanks!
Use reptyr:
reptyr is a utility for taking an existing running program and
attaching it to a new terminal. Started a long-running process over
ssh, but have to leave and don't want to interrupt it? Just start a
screen, use reptyr to grab it, and then kill the ssh session and head
on home.
Or retty:
retty is a tiny tool that lets you attach processes running on other
terminals.
I am deploying my node.js program on a remote machine (Ubuntu 14.04) and the program terminates after ssh session even if I deploy it as background process.
node app.js &
I understand that using forever can solve this, which I have tried and it pretty much works. There is already a thread here that describes the good solutions to it, and there are many other threads all describes good tools and solutions for it.
But, I would like to understand why does the node.js process stops at
first place even if it runs as background process?
Since you are connecting through SSH all the processes belong to that session.
Unless specified by a command like
nohup
or no hang up for short, all the processes that belong to your session through SSH will die with the session.
It's like logging in with a user opening chrome and logging out. The chrome thread will be release once the owner was logged out.
I have a backup script that runs in the background daily on my linux (Fedora 9) computer. If the computer is shut down while the backup is in progress the backup may be damaged so I would like to write a small script that temporarily disables the ability of the user to reboot or shut the computer down.
It is not necessary that the script is uncirumventable, it's just to let the users of the system know that the backup is in progress and they shouldn't shut down. I've seen the Inhibit method on the DBus Free desktop power management spec:
http://people.freedesktop.org/~hughsient/temp/power-management-spec-0.3.html
but that only prevents shutdowns if the system is idle not explicitly at the users request.
Is there an easy way to do this in C/Python/Perl or bash?
Update: To clarify the question above, it's a machine with multiple users, but who use it sequentially via the plugged in keyboard/mouse. I'm not looking for a system that would stop me "hacking" around it as root. But a script that would remind me (or another user) that the backup is still running when I choose shut down from the Gnome/GDM menus
Another get-you-started solution: During shutdown, the system runs the scripts in /etc/init.d/ (or really, a script in /etc/rc.*/, but you get the idea.) You could create a script in that directory that checks the status of your backup, and delays shuts down until the backup completes. Or better yet, it gracefully interrupts your backup.
The super-user could workaround this script (with /sbin/halt for example,) but you can not prevent the super-user for doing anything if their mind is really set into doing it.
There is molly-guard to prevent accidental shutdows, reboots etc. until all required conditions are met -- conditions can be self-defined.
As already suggested you can as well perform backup operations as part of the shutdown process. See for example this page.
If users are going to be shutting down via GNOME/KDE, just inhibit them from doing so.
http://live.gnome.org/GnomePowerManager/FAQ#head-1cf52551bcec3107d7bae8c332fd292ec2261760
I can't help but feel that you're not grokking the Unix metaphor, and what you're asking for is a kludge.
If a user running as root, there's nothing root can do to stop root from shutting down the system! You can do window dressing things like obscuring shutdown UI, but that's not really accomplishing anything.
I can't tell if you're talking about this in the context of a multi-user machine, or a machine being used as a "desktop PC" with a single user sitting at a console. If it's the former, your users really shouldn't be accessing the machine with credentials that can shutdown the system for day-to-day activities. If it's the latter, I'd recommend educating the users to either (a) check that the script is running, or (b) use a particular shutdown script that you designate that checks for the script's process and refuses to shutdown until it's gone.
More a get-you-started than a complete solution, you could alias the shutdown command away, and then use a script like
#!/bin/sh
ps -ef|grep backupprocess|grep -v grep > /dev/null
if [ "$?" -eq 0 ]; then
echo Backup in progress: aborted shutdown
exit 0
else
echo Backup not in progress: shutting down
shutdown-alias -h now
fi
saved in the user's path as shutdown. I expect there would be some variation dependant on how your users invoke shutdown (Window manager icons/command line) and perhaps for different distros too.
But a script that would remind me (or another user) that the backup is still running when I choose shut down from the Gnome/GDM menus
One may use polkit to completely block shutdown/restart - but I failed to find method that would provide a clear response why it is blocked.
Adding the following lines as /etc/polkit-1/localauthority/50-local.d/restrict-login-powermgmt.pkla works:
[Disable lightdm PowerMgmt]
Identity=unix-user:*
Action=org.freedesktop.login1.reboot;org.freedesktop.login1.reboot-multiple-sessions;org.freedesktop.login1.power-off;org.freedesktop.login1.power-off-multiple-sessions;org.freedesktop.login1.suspend;org.freedesktop.login1.suspend-multiple-sessions;org.freedesktop.login1.hibernate;org.freedesktop.login1.hibernate-multiple-sessions
ResultAny=no
ResultInactive=no
ResultActive=no
You still see a confirmation dialog but there are not buttons to confirm. Looks ugly, but works ;)
Unfortunately this applies to all users, not only the lightdm session, so you have to add a second rule to white-list them if desired.
Note that this method block solely reboot/etc commands issued from GUI. To block reboot/etc commands from command line one may use molly-guard - as explained in https://askubuntu.com/questions/17187/disabling-shutdown-command-for-all-users-even-root-consequences/17255#17255