Run cron job only if it isn't already running

Question

I\'m trying to set up a cron job as a sort of watchdog for a daemon that I\'ve created. If the daemon errors out and fails, I want the cron job to periodically restart it...

Answer 1

I'd suggest the following as an improvement to rsanden's answer (I'd post as a comment, but don't have enough reputation...):

#!/usr/bin/env bash

PIDFILE="$HOME/tmp/myprogram.pid"

if [ -e "${PIDFILE}" ] && (ps -p $(cat ${PIDFILE}) > /dev/null); then
  echo "Already running."
  exit 99
fi

/path/to/myprogram

This avoids possible false matches (and the overhead of grepping), and it suppresses output and relies only on exit status of ps.

Answer 2

Docs: https://www.timkay.com/solo/

solo is a very simple script (10 lines) that prevents a program from running more than one copy at a time. It is useful with cron to make sure that a job doesn't run before a previous one has finished.

Example

* * * * * solo -port=3801 ./job.pl blah blah

Answer 3

It's suprising that no one mentioned about run-one. I've solved my problem with this.

 apt-get install run-one

then add run-one before your crontab script

*/20 * * * * * run-one python /script/to/run/awesome.py

Check out this askubuntu SE answer. You can find link to a detailed information there as well.

Answer 4

Simple custom php is enough to achieve. No need to confuse with shell script.

lets assume you want to run php /home/mypath/example.php if not running

Then use following custom php script to do the same job.

create following /home/mypath/forever.php

<?php
    $cmd = $argv[1];
    $grep = "ps -ef | grep '".$cmd."'";
    exec($grep,$out);
    if(count($out)<5){
        $cmd .= ' > /dev/null 2>/dev/null &';
        exec($cmd,$out);
        print_r($out);
    }
?>

Then in your cron add following

* * * * * php /home/mypath/forever.php 'php /home/mypath/example.php'