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From: seth@ctr.columbia.edu (Seth Robertson)
Newsgroups: comp.mail.misc,comp.unix.xenix,comp.unix.wizards
Subject: Re: Checking for new mail (and killing bkgnd process on logout?)
Message-ID: <1989Aug30.053137.2047@ctr.columbia.edu>
Date: 30 Aug 89 05:31:37 GMT
References: <105@csnz.co.nz> <1989Aug26.200813.15629@twwells.com> <64@calcite.UUCP> <128@isgtec.UUCP>
Reply-To: seth@ctr.columbia.edu (Seth Robertson)
Organization: Columbia University Center for Telecommunications Research
Lines: 28

In article <128@isgtec.UUCP> bmw@isgtec.UUCP (Bruce Walker) writes:
>the process
>disconnects from your tty and continues running ...

>My (slightly klugey) solution is to add a line to my .logout (csh):

>	/bin/kill -9 `ps x | awk '$5=="checkmail" {print $1}'`&

>Anyone know a better way?


Sure,  Modify checkmail so that does the following:

	if (kill(ppid,0))
	  exit(1);

So every so often, it checks to see if its parent is around.  If
it isn't, it performs honorable suicide.

Actually, it is also a good idea for the program to make its real PPID
to be 1.  That way you won't accidently kill it && you won't see it
when you do things like `jobs` (You would do it by having the program
call itself && having the first copy kill itself off.  The second copy
then gets a new process group and its parent id gets reset to 1.)

-- 
                                        -Seth Robertson
                                         seth@ctr.columbia.edu