Process Control for Java processes

Question

I am on a unix platform and suspect that one of my java programs (that is supposed to run all the time) may be dropping, thus requiring me to check up on it occationally to ensure it is still running, and if it isnt, I have to start it up. Does anyone know of a quick and dirty way for me to build a process control routine using crontab that will make sure it stays up.
What i first tried was to write a small perl script that looked for the process and if it wasnt there, it would try to start up the java program. The perl works great when I run it manually (thus starting up the process when it is down), but when I crontab the perl script, it doesnt seem to work. anyone know of a better way? or possibly a way that perl can start up the java process. I tried to embed the java command within a system statement within perl. I am lost right now and running out of ideas.
Thanks,
Kevin

Answer 1

I've a similar situation and attached are files that are working in an AIX box:
WfmScheduler and Forecaster are two java programs that are supposed to be running all the time. scheduler and forecaster are two script files that will start WfmScheduler and Forecaster. Each takes up to two parameters and writes their output to a corresponding log file. The cron task will check the ids every two minutes and if it does not see one of them, it will start them. I feel you are familiar with UNIX so it should be easy for you to understand the little script.
Good luck.
PC
file 1
#newcron.txt
0,2,4,6,8,10,12,14,16,18,20,22,24,26,28,30,32,34,36,38,40,42,44,46,48,50,52,54,56,58 * * * * /home/wfm/autostart.sh WFM 5
file2
# autostart.sh
# get WfmScheduler process ids
cmd_path1=WfmScheduler
cmd_path2=Forecaster
pid1=`ps -ef | eval grep [0-9]./.*$cmd_path1.$1 | nawk '{print $2}'`
if [ "$pid1" ]
then
else
rm ./scheduler.log
nohup ./scheduler $1 $2 > ./scheduler.log &
fi
# get Forecaster process ids
pid2=`ps -ef | eval grep [0-9]./.*$cmd_path2.$1 | nawk '{print $2}'`
if [ "$pid2" ]
then
else
rm ./forecaster.log
nohup ./forecaster $1 $2 > ./forecaster.log &
fi