[lug] how to handle open files - upload server

[The Matt]

On Tue, 2004-01-13 at 09:49, Nate Duehr wrote:
> [Sorry about the cross-post for those on all the lists, just attempting to 
> cover a wider audience.]
> 
> Here's an interesting one, or maybe I'm just not creative enough today.  I 
> have a Linux server where people upload some files to me for processing 
> (using sftp).  The files show up, I move them to another machine to do 
> the dirty work.  Simple, right?  Move those files elsewhere after they 
> arrive, which can pretty easily be done from a cron job, no problem 
> there.
> 
> The case I'm wondering about: How to detect in that regular cron job if 
> the file is open (and probably growing) right at the time because it's 
> being uploaded right then... so the cron doesn't attempt to move it to 
> the other machine in the middle of an upload.
> 
> I'm thinking some silly hack at the top of the "move to other machine" 
> script that would look at the directory contents with lsof to make sure 
> nothing has any of the files to be moved already open.  Is there a 
> simpler/smarter way?

My first thought was to use lsof or fuser to see if ftp/rcp/scp is using
the file.  I doubt this'll work with NFS/automount (locally), but I
don't know.

A quick test shows that scp'ing a file from 1 to 2 shows up in lsof -i
as a 1->2:ssh line.  I'd imagine sftp must be similar.  Of course, I'm
not a lsof guru so there is probably some nice 
"lsof -u jimbo -ac sftp" or something that'll be nicer.

The other ways I can think of are filesize-sleep-filesize checks and
looking for an EOF.  I think the lsof is bound to be a more elegant
solution, though.

-- 
I am a theoretical chemist.  Fear me!
 Matt Thompson -- http://ucsub.colorado.edu/~thompsma/
 440 UCB, Boulder, CO  80309-0440
 JILA A510, 303-492-4662
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