README file for saferun.

Contents: - Introduction - Copyright & License Information. - Compile Instructions. - Usage Instructions.

Introduction

Saferun runs a user specified program, and applies certain limits to it. Currently the only limit that can be set is the allowed running time. This is very handy for control scripts (such as automatic scripts run a various events/times). Previously some of the programs my scripts called would hang for unknown reasons, this lead to processes just sitting in the process tree and never dying.

Copyright & License Information:

This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.

This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details.

You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software Foundation, Inc., 675 Mass Ave, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA.

The GNU General Public License v2 can be found in the file 'Copying' in the source tarball.

Compile Instructions

This program has been successfully compilied using these instructions on the following platforms: (Submit yours experience to the author if you wish)

OS Distro libc

Linux 2.2.13      Redhat 5.2      glibc2.1
Linux 2.2.13      Debian Slink    glibc2.1

Imagine this program will compile on almost any linux system running glibc >2.0.

The easiest way to compile this is:

# unpackage the tarball into a temporary location tar -xzf saferun-<version>.tar.gz
cd saferun
# Begin the make process
make
# Install it
make install

It should be that easy. Its not a complex program.

A couple of notes on why it won't compile if it doesn't. It won't compile if you don't have long options as part of the getopt set of fuctions. If you really want this to work; email me and I will see what I can do.

Usage Instructions

Command Line Options
saferun [options] [program] [program args...]

Options include:
-t, --timeout <secs> Kill the program if it hasn't finished in <secs>

                          seconds.
  -f, --failval <num>     If saferun fails for any reason, return this error
                          code. saferun will fail if the program can't be
                          executed. (eg can't be found)
                          (Default: 120)
  -v, --verbose           Verbose output. Just some status messages. (this
                          option negates --silent)
  -s, --silent            Silent output. Saferun Never displays any messages
                          (even when an error occurs!) Normaly saferun is 
                          very quiet anyhow.
  -V, --version           Display program version
  -h, --help              Display help (this screen)

[program] is the program to run. This may be the full path, relative path, or just the program name. If just the program name is specified, it is searched for in the PATH enviornment.
[program args] are the command line arguments to send to the program that is to be run. These can be anything at all. Saferun ignores them.