Run cron job only if it isn't already running

Question

I\'m trying to set up a cron job as a sort of watchdog for a daemon that I\'ve created. If the daemon errors out and fails, I want the cron job to periodically restart it...

Answer 1

I'd suggest the following as an improvement to rsanden's answer (I'd post as a comment, but don't have enough reputation...):

#!/usr/bin/env bash

PIDFILE="$HOME/tmp/myprogram.pid"

if [ -e "${PIDFILE}" ] && (ps -p $(cat ${PIDFILE}) > /dev/null); then
  echo "Already running."
  exit 99
fi

/path/to/myprogram

This avoids possible false matches (and the overhead of grepping), and it suppresses output and relies only on exit status of ps.