A container root process

Start multiple tasks, and kill everything when one of them dies. Also run commands on a regular basis. Kill children when killed. Clean up zombie processes.

Basic:

ubik name=first-process /app/the-one args args \
 --- name=second-process /app/the-other \
 --- name=scheduled pause=360 /app/cleanup

Noteworthy: No configuration file, just give all the processes with arguments, separated with ---. At the begin of each command line there can be options for that job.

• name= sets a name for logging information (otherwise the program name is used).
• pause=S and/or period=T makes a job regularly run, with a pause of at least S seconds in between runs, and with a distance of at least T seconds from the previous start.
• dir=D executes the program in D as the current directory.
• user=U executes the program with the user and group id of the user U, and also sets $HOME, $USER, and $LOGNAME accordingly.

The program name must be a full path, no $PATH search is performed.

When a process without pause, i.e. not a regularly run one, died, ubik terminates the other processes and exits when all have terminated.

Finding a backronym is left as an exercise to the reader.