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Schedule a script or command in x num hours, silently run in the background even if logged out

Terminal - Schedule a script or command in x num hours, silently run in the background even if logged out
( ( sleep 2h; your-command your-args ) & )
2009-08-19 17:39:11
User: sitaram
Functions: sleep
24
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Schedule a script or command in x num hours, silently run in the background even if logged out

doesn't require "at", change the "2h" to whatever you want... (deafult unit for sleep is seconds)

Add to favourites | Report as malicious

Alternatives

There are 2 alternatives - vote for the best!

Terminal - Alternatives
echo "nohup command rm -rf /phpsessions 1>&2 &>/dev/null 1>&2 &>/dev/null&" | at now + 3 hours 1>&2 &>/dev/null
2009-08-18 07:31:17
User: AskApache
Functions: at echo
Tags: cronjob schedule nohup background at
1
Up
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Schedule a script or command in x num hours, silently run in the background even if logged out

This is helpful for shell scripts, I use it in my custom php install script to schedule to delete the build files in 3 hours, as the php install script is completely automated and is made to run slow.

Does require at, which some environments without crontab still do have.

You can add as many commands to the at you want. Here's how I delete them in case the script gets killed. (trapped)

atq |awk '{print $1}'|xargs -iJ atrm J &>/dev/null

Comments (6) | Add to favourites | Report as malicious

Know a better way?

If you can do better, submit your command here.

What others think

That is absolutely brilliant! Love that.. Could you explain how it stays even after logging out? I confirmed that you were right about that.

Comment by AskApache 200 weeks ago

it's called the "double fork" trick, but it woefully underdocumented as far as I can tell. Some day I'll write up an "as correct as I can make it" description but right now I have forgotten most of the details (this is really old stuff)

Comment by sitaram 198 weeks and 3 days ago

Deserves to be in the site's - "All-time greats".

Comment by zlemini 164 weeks and 5 days ago

Your point of view

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