TS(8)TS(8)NAMEts - task spooler. A simple unix batch system
SYNOPSISts [actions] [options] [command...]
Actions: [-KClhV] [-t [id]] [-c [id]] [-p [id]] [-o [id]] [-s [id]] [-r
[id]] [-w [id]] [-u [id]] [-i [id]] [-U <id-id>] [-S [num]]
Options: [-nfgmd] [-L <label>] [-D <id>]
DESCRIPTIONts will run by default a per user unix task queue. The user can add
commands to the queue, watch that queue at any moment, and look at the
task results (actually, standard output and exit error).
SIMPLE USE
Calling ts with a command will add that command to the queue, and call‐
ing it without commands or parameters will show the task list.
COMMAND OPTIONS
When adding a job to ts, we can specify how it will be run and how will
the results be collected:
-n Do not store the standard output/error in a file at $TMPDIR -
let it use the file descriptors decided by the calling process.
If it is not used, the jobid for the new task will be outputed
to stdout.
-g Pass the output through gzip (only if -n ). Note that the output
files will not have a .gz extension.
-f Don not put the task into background. Wait the queue and the
command run without getting detached of the terminal. The exit
code will be that of the command, and if used together with -n,
no result will be stored in the queue.
-m Mail the results of the command (output and exit code) to
$TS_MAILTO , or to the $USER using /usr/sbin/sendmail. Look at
ENVIRONMENT.
-L <label>
Add a label to the task, which will appear next to its command
when listing the queue. It makes more comfortable distinguishing
similar commands with different goals.
-d Run the command only if the command before finished well (error‐
level = 0). This new task enqueued depends on the result of the
previous command. If the task is not run, it is considered as
failed for further dependencies.
-D <id>
Run the command only if the job of given id finished well
(errorlevel = 0). This new task enqueued depends on the result
of the previous command. If the task is not run, it is consid‐
ered as failed for further dependencies. If the server doesn't
have the job id in its list, it will be considered as if the job
failed.
-B In the case the queue is full (due to TS_MAXCONN or system lim‐
its), by default ts will block the enqueuing command. Using -B,
if the queue is full it will exit returning the value 2 instead
of blocking.
-E Keep two different output files for the command stdout and
stderr. stdout goes to the file announced by ts (look at -o),
and stderr goes to the stdout file with an additional ".e". For
example, /tmp/ts-out.SKsDw8 and /tmp/ts-out.SKsDw8.e. Only the
stdout file gets created with mkstemp, ensuring it does not
overwrite any other; the ".e" will be overwritten if it existed.
-N <num>
Run the command only if there are num slots free in the queue.
Without it, the job will run if there is one slot free. For
example, if you use the queue to feed cpu cores, and you know
that a job will take two cores, with -N you can let ts know
that.
ACTIONS
Instead of giving a new command, we can use the parameters for other
purposes:
-K Kill the ts server for the calling client. This will remove the
unix socket and all the ts processes related to the queue. This
will not kill the command being run at that time.
It is not reliable to think that ts-K will finish when the
server is really killed. By now it is a race condition.
-C Clear the results of finished jobs from the queue.
-l Show the list of jobs - to be run, running and finished - for
the current queue. This is the default behaviour if ts is
called without options.
-t [id]
Show the last ten lines of the output file of the named job, or
the last running/run if not specified. If the job is still run‐
ning, it will keep on showing the additional output until the
job finishes. On exit, it returns the errorlevel of the job, as
in -c.
-c [id]
Run the system's cat to the output file of the named job, or the
last running/run if not specified. It will block until all the
output can be sent to standard output, and will exit with the
job errorlevel as in -c.
-p [id]
Show the pid of the named job, or the last running/run if not
specified.
-o [id]
Show the output file name of the named job, or the last run‐
ning/run if not specified.
-s [id]
Show the job state of the named job, or the last in the queue.
-r [id]
Remove the named job, or the last in the queue.
-w [id]
Wait for the named job, or for the last in the queue.
-u [id]
Make the named job (or the last in the queue) urgent - this
means that it goes forward in the queue so it can run as soon as
possible.
-i [id]
Show information about the named job (or the last run). It will
show the command line, some times related to the task, and also
any information resulting from TS_ENV (Look at ENVIRONMENT).
-U <id-id>
Interchange the queue positions of the named jobs (separated by
a hyphen and no spaces).
-h Show help on standard output.
-V Show the program version.
MULTI-SLOT
ts by default offers a queue where each job runs only after the previ‐
ous finished. Nevertheless, you can change the maximum number of jobs
running at once with the -S [num] parameter. We call that number the
amount of slots. You can also set the initial number of jobs with the
environment variable TS_SLOTS . When increasing this setting, queued
waiting jobs will be run at once until reaching the maximum set. When
decreasing this setting, no other job will be run until it can meet the
amount of running jobs set. When using an amount of slots greater
than 1, the action of some commands may change a bit. For example, -t
without jobid will tail the first job running, and -d will try to set
the dependency with the last job added.
-S [num]
Set the maximum amount of running jobs at once. If you don't
specify num it will return the maximum amount of running jobs
set.
ENVIRONMENT
TS_MAXFINISHED
Limit the number of job results (finished tasks) you want in the
queue. Use this option if you are tired of -C.
TS_MAXCONN
The maximum number of ts server connections to clients. This
will make the ts clients block until connections are freed. This
helps, for example, on systems with a limited number of pro‐
cesses, because each job waiting in the queue remains as a
process. This variable has to be set at server start, and cannot
be modified later.
TS_ONFINISH
If the variable exists pointing to an executable, it will be run
by the client after the queued job. It uses execlp, so PATH is
used if there are no slashes in the variable content. The exe‐
cutable is run with four parameters: jobid errorlevel out‐
put_filename and command.
TMPDIR As the program output and the unix socket are thought to be
stored in a temporary directory, TMPDIR will be used if defined,
or /tmp otherwise.
TS_SOCKET
Each queue has a related unix socket. You can specify the socket
path with this environment variable. This way, you can have a
queue for your heavy disk operations, another for heavy use of
ram., and have a simple script/alias wrapper over ts for those
special queues. If it is not specified, it will be
$TMPDIR/socket-ts.[uid].
TS_SLOTS
Set the number of slots at the start of the server, similar to
-S, but the contents of the variable are read only when running
the first instance of ts.
TS_MAILTO
Send the letters with job results to the address specified in
this variable. Otherwise, they are sent to $USER or if not
defined, nobody. The system /usr/sbin/sendmail is used. The job
outputs are not sent as an attachment, so understand the conse‐
quences if you use the -gm flags together.
USER As seen above, it is used for the mail destination if TS_MAILTO
is not specified.
TS_SAVELIST
If it is defined when starting the queue server (probably the
first ts command run), on SIGTERM the queue status will be saved
to the file pointed by this environment variable - for example,
at system shutdown.
TS_ENV This has a command to be run at enqueue time through /bin/sh.
The output of the command will be readable through the option
-i. You can use a command which shows relevant environment for
the command run. For example, you may use
TS_ENV='pwd;set;mount'.
FILES
/tmp/ts.error
if ts finds any internal problem, you should find an error
report there. Please send this to the author as part of the bug
report.
BUGSts expects a simple command line. It does not start a shell parser. If
you want to run complex shell commands, you may want to run them
through sh -c 'commands...' Also, remember that stdin/stdout/stderr
will be detached, so do not use your shell's redirection operators when
you put a job into background. You can use them inside the sh -c in
order to set redirections to the command run.
If an internal problem is found in runtime, a file /tmp/ts.error is
created, which you can submit to the developer in order to fix the bug.
SEE ALSOat(1)AUTHOR
Lluis Batlle i Rossell
NOTES
This page describes ts as in version 0.7.5. Other versions may differ.
The file TRICKS found in the distribution package can show some ideas
on special uses of ts.
Task Spooler 0.7.5 2015-03 TS(8)
