> I got a small script that I use to backup my mailserver every saturday. My
> problem is that a few times a year the machine i use for backup is taken
> offsite (we haul or office around a lot). Then the script stalls because
> the nfs mount fails. Naturally this becomes a problem. Could someone
supply
> me som sh or bash scripting code so I can make sure that this will not
> happen, and that the script stops and just starts cyrus (maybe with a mail
> to someone as well).
>
It's been a while since I wrote a shell script--I always use Perl nowadays
because it provides a superset of the features and a more consistent syntax.
Anyway, normally when I have to deal with something like this in Perl I just
set up an alarm:
----
$SIG{ALRM} = sub {$mount_failed=1};
alarm 120; # call me back in two minutes
eval {do_something_that_might_timeout()};
alarm 0; # turn alarm off
if ($mount_failed) {
# do something
} else {
# do a different thing
}
----
There's probably a way of handling signals in Bash, but I'm not sure what it
is.
You could just replace your shell script with Perl--stick backticks around
calls to shell stuff to get them executed as shell commands rather than Perl
statements.
