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Re: [TCLUG:818] Running RC5 automatically



On Thu, 6 Aug 1998, Tim Wilson wrote:

> How do I run RC5 in the background continuously regardless of who's
> logged in?

Welcome to my solution for everything: 'screen'. Do 'man screen', and
tears will come to your eyes. It's the most beautiful program ever 
invented. :') *sniff*

So you start up 'screen', and it spawns a subshell. Then you can do stuff
(like start up RC5, IRC, a compile...). Then when you get tired of it, you
can type 'CTRL-A D' to 'detach' the screen, dropping you back to the
supershell that spawned 'screen' in the first place. You could even log
out at this point -- the prog is still running under the detached screen,
even if the program is interactive (like IRC).

So when you come back an hour later, at your shell type 'screen -r' to
'reattach' the screen. Voila! Nothing has changed as far as your program
is concerned -- it never knew you left.

Also, if the supershell dies, no worries -- 'screen' knows to detach
automatically (I used to start compiles over dialup this way, and if the
connection dropped or I disconnected, the compile would still be going).

> I assume I can put the command in a file somewhere in the
> /etc/rc.d tree. Is it also possible (I'm quite positive it is) to run
> 'rc5des -update' with a cron job?

Certainly.

_____________________________________________________________________________
Christopher Reid Palmer : jaymz@acm.cs.umn.edu : innerFire on IRC (EFNet)

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