Script won't return when executed via SSH

Question

I am calling a script via ssh client like this:

ssh root@host "su - oracle -c '~/bin/weblogic start'"

The ~/bin/weblogic is a bash script that actually starts the web server in the background and reads and displays its log until certain pattern is found ('Server state changed to RUNNING') at which point it exits. When I call it from the remote location, it hangs after the last bash command is executed. I am sure it has something to do with what is explained at SO (https://stackoverflow.com/questions/8122780/exiting-shell-script-with-background-processes); however, I can't start weblogic bash script in the background – I must wait for it to finish and get its exit code along with regular stdout up to the specific pattern.

The bash code is like this:

   function start_server {
        ~/bin/weblogic.py
        echo 'Python script finished'
        exit 1
   }

   ....
   start_server

The output is

... server output ...
...
... Server state changed to RUNNING ....
Python script finished

How can I make SSH client return? I am running this on Solaris 11.3.

Answer 1

exit 1 signals an error condition. For a script like this you should not include an exit there.

Try this function instead. You can provide the host and port on the command line for startManagedWeblogic.shm, or you can export the variables before starting the server. If you read the startManagedWebLogic.sh script, you should find a variable you can export before running the script to redirect the output instead of the method I used. You could do the same in your python script.

The WebLogic start scripts run until the server has stopped. You will want to background logging output to a file and disown the server. (Consider using the nodeManager to start the server.) Then tail the file until you get it running.

function start_server {
    ~/bin/startManagedWeblogic.sh HOSTNAME PORT &> weblogic.out &
    disown
    ~/bin/tailUntilRunning.py weblogic.out
    echo 'Shell script finished'

}

There are WLST funtions you can use to start the server, although you will need to use wlst.sh as the interpreter for your python (Jython 2.1) script.