: bash command help - nohup

[Patrick O'Callaghan]

On Fri, 2009-10-30 at 08:02 -0700, Suvayu Ali wrote:
> Hi Dan,
> 
> On Friday 30 October 2009 03:11 AM, Dan Track wrote:
> > On Fri, Oct 30, 2009 at 9:56 AM, Cameron Simpson<cs at zip.com.au>  wrote:
> >> On 30Oct2009 09:42, Dan Track<dan.track at gmail.com>  wrote:
> >> | Hi,
> >> |
> >> | I'm trying to run mutliple commands from the command line while using
> >> | nohup. But I can't seem to get the syntax right, can someone please
> >> | correct this for me
> >> |
> >> | nohup cmd 1;cm2;cmd3
> >> |
> >> | All i get is that cmd1 runs from wiht nohup but the rest run in my
> >> | current shell. I'd like all to be run with the single nohup command,
> >> | any thoughts?
> >>
> >> Syntacticly that's three command. A semicolon is like a newline, so its
> >> as though you've typed:
> >>
> >>   nohup cmd 1
> >>   cmd2
> >>   cmd3
> >>
> >> Since nohup expects one command, you need one command. SInce you want
> >> three, invoke the shell as your command:
> >>
> >>   nohup sh -c 'cmd1; cmd2; cmd3'
> >>
> >> Cheers,
> > Hi Cameron,
> >
> > Many thanks for that gem.
> 
> I often find nohup very unreliable. I have had jobs fail submitted with 
> nohup. I was thinking of switching to using screen. Maybe you could give 
> that a try?

Screen is not an option if you want to set up a long-running job and log
out. In what way has nohup failed on you? It's one of the oldest
commands in the Shell toolbox and I've never had a problem with it.

Note that it's often a good idea to run it thus:

nohup command > OUTPUT 2>&1 &

poc