bash script to run in 5 minutes

Question

I just want a bash script to run 5 minutes after it's called. What am I doing wrong?

I have the command:

/path/to/my/script | at now + 5 min

And yet the script runs right away every time.

Dall

Answer 1

You are executing the script immediately and sending its output into at. You need to send the name of the script itself into at:

echo /path/to/my/script | at now + 5 min

Dogoodism

Answer 2

how about:

sleep 300 && /path/to/my/script

Genitourinary

Yeah, this question didn't really need at. I'd suggest you use && instead of ;, so it can be cancelled. – Dogoodism

at is more graceful imo as it does not hang a process. – Lomax

yep, I use this one for shutdown sleep 300 && shutdown -h now – Kone

using seep for shutdown makes no sense because shutdown itself has a convenient timer integrated shutdown -P +5 – Iodine

Answer 3

at -f /path/to/my/script -t now +5 minutes

This should work as far as scheduling a script to run at a specific time. For any more information on the "at" command try linuxmanpages.com. I may be wrong thought ( currently not at a linux system to test ).

Good luck anyways

Paralysis

Answer 4

The problem is you're running the script and piping the output to the at command. What you need to do is run the at command with the path to your script as a parameter. I'm not sure of the syntax, but at -h or man at should help.

Lemal

Answer 5

Commands are evaluated left to right, so first your script gets executed, the output of it will be piped to the at command, this is normal behaviour. Have look at at the at man pages for more information.

Adulation

Answer 6

try this

sys.scheduled_run /path/to/my/script 5

main function

function sys.scheduled_run(){
    local PATH_TO_ACTION MINS SLEEPTIME
    PATH_TO_ACTION=$1
    MINS=$2
    SLEEPTIME=$(($MINS * 60))
    echo "Sleeping for $MINS minute ($SLEEPTIME seconds) and then running $PATH_TO_ACTION"
    ui.countdown $SLEEPTIME
    $PATH_TO_ACTION
    echo "Done"
    if [ "REPEAT" == "$3" ] 
    then
        echo "Going for Repeat"
        sys.scheduled_run "$@"
    fi
}

countdown function

function ui.countdown(){ #USAGE ui.countdown 60 countdown for 60 seconds
        local SECONDS=$1
        local START=$(date +%s)
        local END=$((START + SECONDS))
        local CUR=$START
        while [[ $CUR -lt $END ]]
        do
                CUR=$(date +%s)
                LEFT=$((END-CUR))

                printf "\r%02d:%02d:%02d" \
                        $((LEFT/3600)) $(( (LEFT/60)%60)) $((LEFT%60))

                sleep 1
        done
        echo "        "
}

Curzon