1TS(1) General Commands Manual TS(1)
2
6 ts - task spooler. A simple unix batch system
7
9 ts [actions] [options] [command...]
10 Actions: [-KClhV] [-t [id]] [-c [id]] [-p [id]] [-o [id]] [-s [id]] [-r
12 [id]] [-w [id]] [-k [id]] [-u [id]] [-i [id]] [-U <id-id>] [-S [num]]
13 Options: [-nfgmd] [-L <label>] [-D <id>]
15
18 ts will run by default a per user unix task queue. The user can add
19 commands to the queue, watch that queue at any moment, and look at the
20 task results (actually, standard output and exit error).
21
23 Calling ts with a command will add that command to the queue, and call‐
24 ing it without commands or parameters will show the task list.
25
27 When adding a job to ts, we can specify how it will be run and how will
28 the results be collected:
29 -n Do not store the standard output/error in a file at $TMPDIR -
31 let it use the file descriptors decided by the calling process.
32 If it is not used, the jobid for the new task will be outputed
33 to stdout.
34 -g Pass the output through gzip (only if -n ). Note that the output
36 files will not have a .gz extension.
37 -f Don not put the task into background. Wait the queue and the
39 command run without getting detached of the terminal. The exit
40 code will be that of the command, and if used together with -n,
41 no result will be stored in the queue.
42 -m Mail the results of the command (output and exit code) to
44 $TS_MAILTO , or to the $USER using /usr/sbin/sendmail. Look at
45 ENVIRONMENT.
46 -L <label>
48 Add a label to the task, which will appear next to its command
49 when listing the queue. It makes more comfortable distinguishing
50 similar commands with different goals.
51 -d Run the command only if the command before finished well (error‐
53 level = 0). This new task enqueued depends on the result of the
54 previous command. If the task is not run, it is considered as
55 failed for further dependencies.
56 -D <id>
58 Run the command only if the job of given id finished well
59 (errorlevel = 0). This new task enqueued depends on the result
60 of the previous command. If the task is not run, it is consid‐
61 ered as failed for further dependencies. If the server doesn't
62 have the job id in its list, it will be considered as if the job
63 failed.
64 -B In the case the queue is full (due to TS_MAXCONN or system lim‐
66 its), by default ts will block the enqueuing command. Using -B,
67 if the queue is full it will exit returning the value 2 instead
68 of blocking.
69 -E Keep two different output files for the command stdout and
71 stderr. stdout goes to the file announced by ts (look at -o),
72 and stderr goes to the stdout file with an additional ".e". For
73 example, /tmp/ts-out.SKsDw8 and /tmp/ts-out.SKsDw8.e. Only the
74 stdout file gets created with mkstemp, ensuring it does not
75 overwrite any other; the ".e" will be overwritten if it existed.
76 -N <num>
78 Run the command only if there are num slots free in the queue.
79 Without it, the job will run if there is one slot free. For
80 example, if you use the queue to feed cpu cores, and you know
81 that a job will take two cores, with -N you can let ts know
82 that.
83
85 Instead of giving a new command, we can use the parameters for other
86 purposes:
87 -K Kill the ts server for the calling client. This will remove the
89 unix socket and all the ts processes related to the queue. This
90 will not kill the command being run at that time.
91 It is not reliable to think that ts -K will finish when the
93 server is really killed. By now it is a race condition.
94 -C Clear the results of finished jobs from the queue.
96 -l Show the list of jobs - to be run, running and finished - for
98 the current queue. This is the default behaviour if ts is
99 called without options.
100 -t [id]
102 Show the last ten lines of the output file of the named job, or
103 the last running/run if not specified. If the job is still run‐
104 ning, it will keep on showing the additional output until the
105 job finishes. On exit, it returns the errorlevel of the job, as
106 in -c.
107 -c [id]
109 Run the system's cat to the output file of the named job, or the
110 last running/run if not specified. It will block until all the
111 output can be sent to standard output, and will exit with the
112 job errorlevel as in -c.
113 -p [id]
115 Show the pid of the named job, or the last running/run if not
116 specified.
117 -o [id]
119 Show the output file name of the named job, or the last run‐
120 ning/run if not specified.
121 -s [id]
123 Show the job state of the named job, or the last in the queue.
124 -r [id]
126 Remove the named job, or the last in the queue.
127 -w [id]
129 Wait for the named job, or for the last in the queue.
130 -k [id]
132 Kill the process group of the named job (SIGTERM), or the last
133 running/run job if not specified. Equivalent to kill -- -`ts
134 -p`
135 -u [id]
137 Make the named job (or the last in the queue) urgent - this
138 means that it goes forward in the queue so it can run as soon as
139 possible.
140 -i [id]
142 Show information about the named job (or the last run). It will
143 show the command line, some times related to the task, and also
144 any information resulting from TS_ENV (Look at ENVIRONMENT).
145 -U <id-id>
147 Interchange the queue positions of the named jobs (separated by
148 a hyphen and no spaces).
149 -h Show help on standard output.
151 -V Show the program version.
153
155 ts by default offers a queue where each job runs only after the previ‐
156 ous finished. Nevertheless, you can change the maximum number of jobs
157 running at once with the -S [num] parameter. We call that number the
158 amount of slots. You can also set the initial number of jobs with the
159 environment variable TS_SLOTS . When increasing this setting, queued
160 waiting jobs will be run at once until reaching the maximum set. When
161 decreasing this setting, no other job will be run until it can meet the
162 amount of running jobs set. When using an amount of slots greater
163 than 1, the action of some commands may change a bit. For example, -t
164 without jobid will tail the first job running, and -d will try to set
165 the dependency with the last job added.
166 -S [num]
168 Set the maximum amount of running jobs at once. If you don't
169 specify num it will return the maximum amount of running jobs
170 set.
171
173 TS_MAXFINISHED
174 Limit the number of job results (finished tasks) you want in the
175 queue. Use this option if you are tired of -C.
176 TS_MAXCONN
178 The maximum number of ts server connections to clients. This
179 will make the ts clients block until connections are freed. This
180 helps, for example, on systems with a limited number of pro‐
181 cesses, because each job waiting in the queue remains as a
182 process. This variable has to be set at server start, and cannot
183 be modified later.
184 TS_ONFINISH
186 If the variable exists pointing to an executable, it will be run
187 by the client after the queued job. It uses execlp, so PATH is
188 used if there are no slashes in the variable content. The exe‐
189 cutable is run with four parameters: jobid errorlevel out‐
190 put_filename and command.
191 TMPDIR As the program output and the unix socket are thought to be
193 stored in a temporary directory, TMPDIR will be used if defined,
194 or /tmp otherwise.
195 TS_SOCKET
197 Each queue has a related unix socket. You can specify the socket
198 path with this environment variable. This way, you can have a
199 queue for your heavy disk operations, another for heavy use of
200 ram., and have a simple script/alias wrapper over ts for those
201 special queues. If it is not specified, it will be
202 $TMPDIR/socket-ts.[uid].
203 TS_SLOTS
205 Set the number of slots at the start of the server, similar to
206 -S, but the contents of the variable are read only when running
207 the first instance of ts.
208 TS_MAILTO
210 Send the letters with job results to the address specified in
211 this variable. Otherwise, they are sent to $USER or if not
212 defined, nobody. The system /usr/sbin/sendmail is used. The job
213 outputs are not sent as an attachment, so understand the conse‐
214 quences if you use the -gm flags together.
215 USER As seen above, it is used for the mail destination if TS_MAILTO
217 is not specified.
218 TS_SAVELIST
220 If it is defined when starting the queue server (probably the
221 first ts command run), on SIGTERM the queue status will be saved
222 to the file pointed by this environment variable - for example,
223 at system shutdown.
224 TS_ENV This has a command to be run at enqueue time through /bin/sh.
226 The output of the command will be readable through the option
227 -i. You can use a command which shows relevant environment for
228 the command run. For example, you may use
229 TS_ENV='pwd;set;mount'.
230
232 /tmp/ts.error
233 if ts finds any internal problem, you should find an error
234 report there. Please send this to the author as part of the bug
235 report.
236
239 ts expects a simple command line. It does not start a shell parser. If
240 you want to run complex shell commands, you may want to run them
241 through sh -c 'commands...' Also, remember that stdin/stdout/stderr
242 will be detached, so do not use your shell's redirection operators when
243 you put a job into background. You can use them inside the sh -c in
244 order to set redirections to the command run.
245 If an internal problem is found in runtime, a file /tmp/ts.error is
247 created, which you can submit to the developer in order to fix the bug.
248
251 at(1)
252
254 Lluis Batlle i Rossell
255
257 This page describes ts as in version 1.0. Other versions may differ.
258 The file TRICKS found in the distribution package can show some ideas
259 on special uses of ts.
260Task Spooler 1.0 2016-03 TS(1)