Re: [PLUG] not entirely off topic, killing a windows process with cron using cygwin

[Walt Mankowski <waltman@pobox.com>]

It sounds like you've already worked out how to do this, but I'll add
this anyway.  If you wanted to test if cron works without a cygwin
terminal open, would this work?

1) open Mine Sweeper or Calculator
2) setup a cronjob to run a few minutes in the future and kill the
   thing you started in step 1
3) close cygwin terminal
4) wait and see if it runs and kills the process

On Thu, Jul 02, 2015 at 02:25:23PM -0400, JP Vossen wrote:
> Don't forget, you do NOT always need Cygwin to get Unix/Linux tools on
> Windows!  Cygwin is great, but the mish-mash of Unix+Windows always
> makes my head hurt.
> 
> The Windows native stand-alone .EXE files of UnxUtils gave me most of
> the power the TextUtils without the Cygwin complexity when I was still
> stuck using Windows.  gnuwin32 are the next best, but have some DLL
> dependencies.  Cygwin is a much fuller environment, but at a cost of
> more complexity.
> 
> http://unxutils.sourceforge.net/
>     https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UnxUtils
> http://gnuwin32.sourceforge.net/
> Related: http://www.jpsdomain.org/windows/winshell.html
> 
> 
> On 07/02/2015 12:26 PM, Michael Lazin wrote:
> > That's exactly what I did, I used the windows task manager to call
> > /bin/bash in cygwin to run taskkill /PID `tasklist | grep Agent | awk
> > '{print $3}'` /F"
> > 
> > It's messy but it does what I want.  I basically have to shut down a
> > program before I leave work every day so I have automated it shutting
> > down after I am gone because I keep forgetting.  I would rather automate
> > it and forget about it.
> > 
> > On Thu, Jul 2, 2015 at 12:21 PM, Thomas Delrue <delrue.thomas@gmail.com
> > <mailto:delrue.thomas@gmail.com>> wrote:
> > 
> > One thing I just realized, if you really need to run grep and other unix
> > executables in your script to figure out which PID to terminate, and
> > therefore really need Cygwin (although I doubt this); I'm pretty sure
> > that you can invoke cygwin from the Task Scheduler (thus solving the
> > scheduling problem) while passing as a parameter to cygwin, the script
> > to execute which will now have the ability to run grep and ls and awk.
> > 
> > Lastly, I remember that there is a grep for windows
> > (http://gnuwin32.sourceforge.net/packages/grep.htm and
> > http://gnuwin32.sourceforge.net/), which was always one of the first
> > tools I deployed on any windows machine I took on.
> > 
> > There is also findstr which is like the 'not-so-bright windows cousin of
> > grep'.
> > 
> > On 07/02/2015 11:54 AM, Michael Lazin wrote:
> >> You're right, I hate windows and I really want to use grep, but it
> >> seems that I can automate the running of  /bin/bash in the windows
> >> task scheduler too.  Thank you.
> > 
> >> On Thu, Jul 2, 2015 at 11:51 AM, Thomas Delrue
> >> <delrue.thomas@gmail.com <mailto:delrue.thomas@gmail.com>> wrote:
> > 
> >>> I understand I'm pushing back against "doing this in Cygwin" but I
> >>> think that the 'native' windows solution is going to be easiest to
> >>> set up as well as maintain (e.g. remote maintenance, EventLog
> >>> integration, etc).
> >>>
> >>> Task Scheduler is pretty easy: you can specify the command (which
> >>> can be an exe, batch file, ...), the 'user context' to run it in,
> >>> the time when to run and the frequency. It's all there with a
> >>> simple UI to do. This would eliminate the question of 'should
> >>> cygwin be running'.
> >>>
> >>> On 07/02/2015 11:43 AM, Michael Lazin wrote:
> >>>> I did use the taskkill command coupled with bash, I want it to
> >>>> run at a certain time of day, that's why I'm using cron.  Cygwin
> >>>> will let you mix windows and linux commands, I used awk and grep
> >>>> to get the windows PID. It's pretty beautiful, I just need to
> >>>> make sure that cron runs as
> >>> expected.
> >>>>
> >>>> On Thu, Jul 2, 2015 at 11:39 AM, Thomas Delrue
> >>>> <delrue.thomas@gmail.com <mailto:delrue.thomas@gmail.com>> wrote:
> >>>>
> >>>>> Here's a suggestion that doesn't require cygwin (or it being
> >>>>> open) $> taskkill /im something.exe /f
> >>>>>
> >>>>> Taskkill /? will show you the different options including one
> >>>>> for specifying a PID
> >>>>>
> >>>>> You can use a scheduled task to kick it off whenever you want
> >>>>> under whichever credentials you provide
> >>>>>
> >>>>> On 07/02/2015 11:18 AM, Michael Lazin wrote:
> >>>>>> I have a windows process that I should shut down every night.
> >>>>>> I am more comfortable with bash than I am with windows
> >>>>>> anything.  I used cygwin and a small bash one-liner to kill
> >>>>>> my process.  I have tested my bash one liner and it does kill
> >>>>>> said process, my question is, do I have to leave my cygwin
> >>>>>> bash terminal open for cron to run my bash script?
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> I checked stack overflow and they say this:
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>
> >>>
> > stackoverflow.com/questions/707184/how-do-you-run-a-crontab-in-cygwin <http://stackoverflow.com/questions/707184/how-do-you-run-a-crontab-in-cygwin>
> > -on-windows
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>>
> >>>
> > I don't have admin on my windows machine, I can't make it run as a
> >>>>>> service
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> I don't want to use the windows schedular, I want to use
> >>>>>> bash dammit.
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> My question to the group is is anyone familiar enough with
> >>>>>> cygwin to know if the cron function will work if I don't run
> >>>>>> cygwin as a service, do I need my cygwin bash window to be
> >>>>>> open for this to work?
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> I might try scheduling a task for tonight when I'm still here
> >>>>>> to see if it succeeds, but I was just wondering if anyone has
> >>>>>> experience scheduling with cron in cygwin.
> 
> Later,
> JP
> ----------------------------|:::======|-------------------------------
> JP Vossen, CISSP            |:::======|      http://bashcookbook.com/
> My Account, My Opinions     |=========|      http://www.jpsdomain.org/
> ----------------------------|=========|-------------------------------
> "Microsoft Tax" = the additional hardware & yearly fees for the add-on
> software required to protect Windows from its own poorly designed and
> implemented self, while the overhead incidentally flattens Moore's Law.
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