QEMU do not start when executed in background inside shell script

Question

I have an application that runs fine, with and without '&' when run directly from the terminal. However, if I try to execute it from a shell script, it works only if the trailing '&' is skipped. Thus, I am unable to start this process in background from inside the shell script.

<Path to My application> <options> &

The application window opens but makes no progress after that.

(The application is a modified(by me) version of qemu 0.13.0. When I run a disk image from that in background in a shell script, I get stuck with a black screen)

Answer 1

There's no need to background the application with the ampersand when it has a built-in option for doing so. Such is the case with qemu (unless you've removed it):

% qemu-kvm --help | grep daemon
-daemonize      daemonize QEMU after initializing

Answer 2

Do you see a message like

[1] suspended (tty output) myapplication

in the terminal? This message means that your program is trying to read from the terminal (probably because it's reading from its standard input). Since only a foreground program can read from the terminal, the program is suspended.

If you see this message, figure out why your program is reading. In desperation, try redirecting its standard input (myapplication </dev/null).

If you see no such message, it's some other bug in your program. Look at what your program is doing in a debugger or with strace.

Answer 3

There is a difference between running a backgrounded command from the terminal and from a shell script.

In a non-interactive shell (with job control disabled) the stdin of a backgrounded command gets implicitly redirected from /dev/null, which may cause your command not to execute at all.

See the POSIX standard on the Shell Command Language: Asynchronous Lists.

# compare where fd 0 is pointing to
sh -c 'sleep 10 & lsof -p ${!}'
sh -c 'sleep 10 0<&0 & lsof -p ${!}'
sh -c 'set -m; sleep 10 & lsof -p ${!}'
sh -ic 'sleep 10 & lsof -p ${!}'