Run command `at ` 5 seconds from now

Question

As part of a slightly complex script, I need to tell a server to run a simulation. Normally, I would achieve this by doing ssh user@server \'simulation/script\'

Answer 1

at doesn't use seconds, only minutes/hours/days

What you can do is precede your script with nohup, which will ensure the script isn't killed when you disconnect your SSH session.

ssh server 'nohup yourscript.sh &'

NOTE: Having just played with the above, the SSH connection has to be killed manually.

Another alternative would be screen

screen -d -m yourscript.sh

This will launch a detached screen process that you can reattach to at any time later.

NOTE: I've tested this with the following script and command and it worked perfectly.

SSH command

ssh server.com 'screen -d -m ~/myscript.sh'

myscript.sh

#!/bin/sh
sleep 10
echo "hello world" > /tmp/hello
exit;