NAME

       ts - task spooler. A simple unix batch system

SYNOPSIS

       tsp [actions] [options] [command...]

       Actions:  [-KClhV]  [-t  [id]] [-c [id]] [-p [id]] [-o [id]] [-s [id]] [-r [id]] [-w [id]]
       [-k [id]] [-u [id]] [-i [id]] [-U <id-id>] [-S [num]]

       Options: [-nfgmd] [-L <label>] [-D <id>]

DESCRIPTION

       ts 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  calling  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 (errorlevel = 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 considered 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 limits), 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 running, 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 running/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.

       -k [id]
              Kill the process group of the named job (SIGTERM), or the last running/run  job  if
              not specified.  Equivalent to kill -- -`ts -p`

       -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 previous 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 processes, 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 executable is run with four parameters: jobid  errorlevel
              output_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 consequences 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.

BUGS

       ts 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 ALSO

       at(1)

AUTHOR

       Lluis Batlle i Rossell

NOTES

       This page describes ts as in version 1.0. Other versions may differ. The file TRICKS found
       in the distribution package can show some ideas on special uses of ts.

       The Debian version of ts is called tsp to avoid name conflict with moreutils package.