--- name: "run" section: "1" platform: "linux" package: "run" version: "0.9.2-8" release: "Debian 3.0 (Woody)" platforms: ["linux"] url: "https://new.carta.tech/run" --- # run(1) maintains a single running process of a program stop - stops a program run by \`run' killrunning - sends a signal to the running program isrunning - checks if a program is running ## NAME run - maintains a single running process of a program stop - stops a program run by \`run' killrunning - sends a signal to the running program isrunning - checks if a program is running ## SYNOPSIS **run** \[**-h**, **--help**\] \[**-r**, **--restart**\] \[**--max-restarts** *n*\] \[**--daemon**\] \[**--robust**\] \[**--version**, **-V**\] \[**--null**\] \[**-d**\] \[**-i**, **--interval** *n.nnn*\] *program* *arg1* *arg2* *...* **stop** \[**-h**, **--help**\] \[**-q**, **--quiet**\] \[**-f**, **--force**\] \[**-***signal*\] *program* **killrunning** \[**-***signal*\] *program* **isrunning** \[**-q**, **--quiet**\] *program* ## DESCRIPTION **run** runs *program*, creating a lock file and a write-lock ([**fcntl**(2)](/fcntl/2.md)) which is held for the lifetime of the process. This allows **stop** and **isrunning** to properly test if the *program* is already running. **run** does *not* allow multiple instances of *program* to be run - this is what it is really for. *program* can be a full path. You should not try to mix actions of different paths of a program with the same name: eg. **/usr/sbin/***program* and **/usr/bin/***program*. The path may contain only a limited set of characters **\[A-Za-z0-9./\_-\]**. If run receives the signal **SIGTERM** it exits immediately disregarding *program*. If the **--robust** option is not used then the same behaviour results from **SIGHUP**, **SIGINT**, **SIGQUIT** or **SIGPIPE**. If **run** is used on a program that is already **run**ing, then it will return with the error:\ **lock failed: Resource temporarily unavailable**. **stop** stops *program*. If *signal* is specified, the signal is transmitted to *program* and **run** waits for *program* to exit. If *signal* is not specified, **SIGTERM** is transmitted to *program* and **run** waits for *program* to exit. **stop** will wait until **run** has exited before returning. **--force** forces **run** to exit immediately, without waiting for *program* to finish. A **-0** means to not send a signal (only makes sense with **--force**). **killrunning** sends a signal to *program*. If *signal* is specified, the signal is transmitted to *program*. **run** stays around and restarts *program* if it died as a reaction to the signal if --restart has been given as parameter to **run**. If *signal* is not specified, **SIGTERM** is transmitted to *program*. This is a dirty hack that should really be incorporated into stop. **isrunning** prints out the process id of the instance of **run** that is the parent of *program*, as well as the pid of *program* itself. Also see **RETURN VALUE** below. All error messages as well as informational messages are printed to stderr, except that the version is printed to stdout, and **isrunning** prints pid information to stdout. These programs use System V IPC to communicate between each other, which must obviously be supported on your system. (All popular Linux distributions should be enabled by default.) These programs have no idea about any other processes except the ones started by **run**. ## OPTIONS - **-h**, **--help** Print help. - **-V**, **--version** Print version. - **-r**, **--restart** Restart *program* indefinitely if it dies. - **--max-restarts** *num* Maximum number of restarts before exiting, default is infinity. Use only with **-r**. - **--daemon** Fork twice into the background, preventing future death in case of the death of the parent (calling shell). In this case, no errors will be apparent, nor an error resulting from the existing of an already running *program*. - **--robust** Ignore the signals **SIGHUP**, **SIGINT**, **SIGQUIT** and **SIGPIPE**, - **--null** Redirect input and all output to **/dev/null**. - **-d** Same as **--daemon**, **--robust**, **--null**, **--restart**. - **-q**, **--quiet** Suppress certain explanatory messages unless they are errors. - **-i**, **--interval** *n.nnn* In the case of **--restart** minimum interval between restarts. Default is **0.1** seconds - i.e. a maximum of ten restarts per second. - **-f**, **--force** Exit immediately. Do not wait for *program* to exit. ## EXAMPLES ``` Examples: run -d pppd nodetach ... #(keeps pppd running always) stop -INT pppd #(stops pppd) echo $? #(prints the exit status of pppd) isrunning pppd #(checks if pppd is running) run -d netscape #(keeps one instance of netscape running for the current uid) ``` ## RETURN VALUE **run** returns 127 in the case of any failure, it reports the failure to stderr if it can. Otherwise is returns the return value of *program*. **isrunning** value 0 (success) if *program* is running, and 1 (failure) otherwise. **stop** has the same return value as *program* if *program* exited normally (See [**wait**(2)](/wait/2.md)), or 0 if the **--force** option was used. In case of error, it returns 127, and prints an appropriate message. ## BUGS Lock files are not cleaned up after exit. This is not a problem and has nothing to do with the ability to detect if the program is running. These programs may not work well over NFS if file locking does not work properly for your NFS implementation. Hence only use where the **/tmp** directory is mounted locally (say in a ram disk). These programs must be install setuid to work (**chown a+s** **run**). This package is simple enough that the security risk of this is zero. See the source yourself if you are not convinced. SIGHUP is used internally and is always ignored. ## FILES **/tmp/run/***program***.run-***uid* are the lock files, where *uid* is the uid of the caller. This directory is created with permissions **rwx------** for security. ## STANDARDS **run** conforms to no operating system standards that I know of, but it really should be standard shell utility. ## AVAILABILITY The latest version of the program can be found at either **ftp://metalab.unc.edu/pub/Linux/system/shell**, or **ftp://lava.obsidian.co.za/pub/run**. ## AUTHOR Paul Sheer \ killrunning: Marc Haber \ ## SEE ALSO [**ps**(1)](/ps/1.md), [**msgctl**(2)](/msgctl/2.md), [**msgget**(2)](/msgget/2.md), [**msgrcv**(2)](/msgrcv/2.md), [**msgsnd**(2)](/msgsnd/2.md). [**fcntl**(2)](/fcntl/2.md). [**signal**(7)](/signal/7.md).