About

Batchrun is a bash script which can be used for running a list of commands in a file.

Batchrun automatically ...

• runs the command in the file if the cpu usage is less than certain predefined limit.
• displays the running process, successfully exited process, unsuccessfully finished process.

Dependencies

Linux utilities:

• xterm
• ps

Quick Start

1. Download and Set up Batchrun

   You can download the batchrun script, make it executable and put it in the directory which is in the $PATH environment variable. The following example assumes that ~/bin is in your $PATH environment variable.

   $ chmod +x batchrun
   $ cp batchrun ~/bin
   

2. Tutorial for Batchrun

   After finished previous step, you are ready to use batchrun to running a list of command in a file. To understand how batchrun works, please create following shell scripts and save it as finite.sh.

   #!/bin/bash
   # This script use 'for' loop to create a running process.
   for i in {1..1000000}; do
       ((1+1))
   done
   

   Run the following command the make finite.sh executable.

   $ chmod +x finite.sh

   In the same directory, create following file and save it as commands.txt

   ./finite.sh
   ./finite.sh
   ./finite.sh
   ./finite.sh
   ./finite.sh
   

   Notice that each line contains a valid command. DO NOT SEPARATE ONE COMMAND INTO MULTIPLE LINES as this will cause parsing error in terminal. Then, run the following command to use Batchrun to execute the command in the commands.txt.

   $ batchrun -i commands.txt

   After running this command, batchrun will run the commands in the commands.txt based on the current cpu usage. If the current cpu usage exceeds default cpu limit specified in the batchrun, batchrun will stop issuing subsequent command in the commands.txt until the cpu usage falls below the limit. Batchrun generates a number of log files in the working directory. These log files provide following information.

   .process_log: list of commands have been issued in the terminal
   .success_log: list of commands whose process has successfully exited
   .failure_log: list of commands whose process has exited with failure
   .running_log: list of commands whose process is still running
   .cpu_usage.XXXX: current cpu usage (where XXXX denotes random generated characters)
   

   After running previous batchrun command, batchrun will generate above log files. Before issuing batchrun commands, you have to delete these log files. You can run following command to delete these file.

   $ batchrun -c

   To specify the cpu limit, --limit flag can be used. For example:

   $ batchrun -l 20 -i commands.txt

Warning

Batchrun only check whether the first argument of the command is executable. Batchrun will not check whether the user issues correct command or not.

Inspiration

• pcolby/scripts

TODO

• Dependencies checking
• Enable user to reset cpu limit when the batchrun is running.
• Check whether the command in the input file is complete or not (e.g. missing quotes).

Batchrun is a work in progress, so any ideas or patches are appreciated.