3

I'm running Debian 6 64bit.

What I'm trying to do is run Unison on startup to constantly monitor files on the LAMP server I have running on my VM and sync that with the VM Shared folder. 

while true
do
    unison -batch -owner -group /folder1/ /folder2/
    sleep 10
done

Now, I can get this script to run at startup... but the problem is that it hangs. Even if I use nohup, it hangs at the nohup dialog.

Also, if there is a way I can use nohup I'd really rather it not log anything at all. However, I can't find this option in either nohup or unison documentation. I may be overlooking it, but I can't find it.

I'm sure there is a way to link Apache to another folder and just use that... but I still want to know how to do this because I could use it in different contexts as well.

Thank you

mawburn
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3 Answers3

2

There is a built in -repeat flag, which you can give a number of seconds that unison should wait between executions. See the manual.

unison -repeat 10 -batch -owner -group /folder1/ /folder2/
Jasper Kuperus
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2

Why not to point Apache to your shared folder on VM in the first place? This is as simple as to add/change one file for your virtualhost (I believe you've done this anyway). This will let you not to wait 5-10 seconds while your server document root is being updated.

However what you actually ask is a periodically running some command, so in the end you just need a cron job. This answer may be helpful for you.

So you just add to your crontab file:

* * * * * unison -batch -owner -group /folder1/ /folder2/ >/dev/null 2>&1
* * * * * sleep 10; unison -batch -owner -group /folder1/ /folder2/ >/dev/null 2>&1
* * * * * sleep 20; unison -batch -owner -group /folder1/ /folder2/ >/dev/null 2>&1
* * * * * sleep 30; unison -batch -owner -group /folder1/ /folder2/ >/dev/null 2>&1
* * * * * sleep 40; unison -batch -owner -group /folder1/ /folder2/ >/dev/null 2>&1
* * * * * sleep 50; unison -batch -owner -group /folder1/ /folder2/ >/dev/null 2>&1

The >/dev/null 2>&1 means to redirect stdout and stderr output i.e. remove all logging.

Community
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jollyroger
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0
vi /etc/sysconfig/unison.env

add export HOME=/path/to/home(for example: export HOME=/home/user1)

vi /etc/init.d/unison

add these lines:

#!/bin/bash
# chkconfig: 2345 20 80
# description: unison service

# add this line to avoid `Fatal error: exception Util.Fatal("Environment variable HOME not found")`
. /etc/sysconfig/unison.env
case $1 in
    start)
        unison -batch -owner -group /folder1/ /folder2/ &
    ;;

    stop)
        ps aux | grep -v grep | grep unison | awk '{print $2}' | xargs kill -9
    ;;

    *)
        echo "Usage: service unison {start|stop}"
    ;;
esac

config startup

chkconfig unison on
muyinliu
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