Getting SETI to stay running on UNIX

[Crisis]

Can anyone help me with getting SETI to always be running on a UNIX box? Just something simple.. I have heard of using crontab, or rc.local, but I can't get either to run... I can manually run it through telneting in, but when I disconnect it stops... I am not overly great at Unix so basic advice would help.. ;-) I was using a crontab of:
0,15,30,45 * * * * /home/crisis/seti/setiathome
and entered that as a crontab, but it didnt run... Does it need to be in root's crontab? Thanks!

 

[TwoFace]

Crisis,

I'm not a unix man, but I know some linux and it seems to me you have forgotten to use the & sign at the end... I've also just asked another guy here that knows some unix and he says you have to use nohup at the start of the command (if he remembers right) if you want it to run completely independent of the terminal window you're in.

Hope this helps some, good luck

With love and respect your fellow TA member

Two-Face
My stats:
RC5
OGR-25
Seti
Gamma Flux

 

[Poof]

TwoFace is correct! 🙂

You would use:

nohup ./setiathome &

And then you can disconnect.

[EDIT: The readme file has how you can actually add lines in crontab to have the process try to start every hour in case it crashes]

 

[Crisis]

OK it was the & i was forgetting that, all my crontabs are now running properly! Thanks, more units fro team Ananddtech! ;-)

 

[Poof]

😀

(yeah... I always keep forgetting that "&" and then wonder why a couple of my headless machines aren't uploading results... 😉)

 

[TwoFace]

WOOOT

Cool Crisis 😎

I guess I'm one of the only one in this thread that remembers the & thing all the time then?!? 😕 Might be because I'm so new to the whole *nix thing 😉

Keep the WU's flowing

With love and respect your fellow TA member

Two-Face
My stats:
RC5
OGR-25
Seti
Gamma Flux

 

[Darkone]

you may want to add

> /dev/null 2>&1

to the end of your crontab line so that the initial text output gets dumped into oblivion rather than it being filed.

D

 

[Robor]

Trying to remember my DG/UX class...

Does the "&" tell it to run the process in the backround?

Rob

 

[Poof]

Yep Robor - that's what it does. It forks the process into the background!

🙂

 

[TwoFace]

Yup Robor that it does 😉

From what i gathered from the guy here the nohup was to make the process completely indepandant of the terminal, even tho' my experience on linux is that only the & is sufficient for that too ... but then linux isn't unix 😉

/me is VERY confused about all this... kinda 😕

With love and respect your fellow TA member

Two-Face
My stats:
RC5
OGR-25
Seti
Gamma Flux

 

[Poof]

Awww TwoFace... 🙂

The "nohup" tells *nix to create a file called "nohup.out", where the console messages from that process save to. That's why Darkone mentioned about piping the output to /dev/null instead, if you prefer not to have the console messages saved.

🙂

[EDIT: Oh and the "nohup" is short for "no hangup"...]

 

[TwoFace]

Boom 😎

Poof is inda houze 😉

Thanks, I feel better now that I actually understand something ... I think I'll stick with screen ./whateverproggy 😎 much easier on my poor brain, and I don't have to pipe the output to dev/null that I've never been able adress properly either 😉

/me has tried to do stuff with dev/null before and just ended up with strange files 😕

/me pats midnight commander and screen 😀

Oh and my co-worker told me it meant no hangup when he mentioned the nohup thing 😉

With love and respect your fellow TA member

Two-Face
My stats:
RC5
OGR-25
Seti
Gamma Flux

 

[Poof]

LOL TwoFace... you had me laughing so hard, people were peeping in my office to see what was the matter! 😀

And /me also can't do without midnight commander!

mc rulez!!! 😀

 

[poop]

Just be sure you are not running it ona school computer.

I work in the lab at my engineering school, and it REALLY pisses off the director when people start seti on the supercomputer.