ps aux | grep nwserver
[download]

Or you could look at Proc::ProcessTable which makes this easy (and a bit more portable)...

gav^

Excellent suggestion. ++insensate. I hate having root requirements for something like this, and it seems I missed one of the more obvious ways to avoid it this time ;) Thanks for pointing it out to me.

MrCromeDome

Execellent... another NWN Perl dude *g*

I noticed a TCL script floating around that hits the backgrounded server with via Expect I've been looking for time to wrap a Perl interface around that (TCL::Expect), but this will do in the mean time.

Hate to sound dumb but I'm not understanding the comparison of:

  # Get the lowest PID in the list
  $pid_list = substr($pid_list,rindex($pid_list," ") + 1,length($pid_l
+ist) -  rindex($pid_list, " "));

  # If two aren't equal, restart server
  if($pid ne $pid_list)
[download]

NOTE: To those who may know a better way, this script or one resembling it will probably get wide circulation and would be highly appreciated by many.

At the risk of going a bit too far OT here:

The above script has already been submitted to the BioWare community. I hope it's making the rounds already.

The next project involves a web based server administration interface in Perl. Like you said. . . lots of Perl work waiting in NWN ;) Until the content creation tools (and server stability issues) get resolved, I'm going to stick to writing Perl utilities to help manage the game better.

Thanks for your interest =) I'd be interested in chatting more about this with you. /msg me again sometime =)

MrCromeDome

***************************************
[root@never nwn]# more nwstart-ebro.pl
#!/usr/bin/perl


$nwpath="/usr/local/nwn";

#if [ -z $1 ]; then 
#       echo "you did not give me a module to launch." 
#       echo "usage: $0 MODULENAME"
#       exit 
#ifi

#MODULE=$1
#while(1){}

$pid_file = $nwpath . "/.nwnpid";
unless(open (PIDS, "<$pid_file")){
        print "Informational: no pidfile found at $pid_file\n";
         system("cd $nwpath");
                system("./nwserver -module Yourmod -maxclients 60 -min
+level 1
 -maxlevel 20 -pauseandplay 0 -pvp 2 -servervault 0 -elc 0 -ilr 0 -gam
+etype role
play -oneparty 0 -difficulty 3 -autosaveinterval 0 -playerpassword you
+rpass -dmp
assword fryme -servername yourserver -publicserver 0 -reloadwhenempty 
+0 -qui
et &");
                
}
while (<PIDS>) {
        chomp;
        $line=$_;
        print "pid line is: $line\n";
        if ($line eq "0"){
                print "nwn may have failed to start up earlier, trying
+ again...\
n";
        }
        if ($line ne "0") {
                $arg=$ARGV[0];
                if ($arg eq "-f"){
                        #`rm -f $pid_file`;
                        system("cd $nwpath");
                        system("./nwserver -module Yourmod -maxclients
+ 60 -minlevel 1
 -maxlevel 20 -pauseandplay 0 -pvp 2 -servervault 0 -elc 0 -ilr 0 -gam
+etype role
play -oneparty 0 -difficulty 3 -autosaveinterval 0 -playerpassword you
+rpass -dmp
assword fryme -servername yourserver -publicserver 0 -reloadwhenempty 
+0 -qui
et &");
                }else{
                        print "nwn is already running! PID=$line\n";
                }
        }
        else{
                `cd $nwpath`;
                $output=`./nwserver -module Yourmod -maxclients 60 -mi
+nlevel 1
 -maxlevel 20 -pauseandplay 0 -pvp 2 -servervault 0 -elc 0 -ilr 0 -gam
+etype role
play -oneparty 0 -difficulty 3 -autosaveinterval 0 -playerpassword you
+rpass -dmp
assword fryme -servername yourserver -publicserver 0 -reloadwhenempty 
+0 -qui
et &`;
                print "$output\n";

        }
}
close PIDS;
***************************************

[root@never nwn]# more nwkeepon-ebro.pl
#!/usr/bin/perl
# http://www.perlmonks.org/index.pl?node_id=181916
# The script looks at a file created by nwserver that
# contains the PID of the server process. The list of
# PIDs (well, the last in the list) from the system
# is checked against the PID in the file, and if there
# is no match, the server is assumed to be crashed, and
# we attempt to start it again.
# This calls nwstart.sh, but that script, too, seems a
# bit faulty, as does nwstop.pl; they both give errors 
# unless the server is in just the right state.

use strict;
use warnings;

# Path to your Neverwinter Nights installation:
my $path = "/usr/local/nwn/";

# Don't change these two lines!
my $pid_file = $path . ".nwnpid";
my $startpid = "nwstart";
my $server = $path . "./nwstart-ebro.pl -f &";

# Time to wait (in seconds) before checking to see if the server is st
+ill alive:
my $delay = 30;
#my $pid = `cat $pid_file`;
#my $pid_list = "";
#my $start_list = "";

while(1)
{
  my $status=open (PIDS, "<$pid_file");
        if (!$status){
                print "no pid file found, server was previously stoppe
+d graceful
ly, no action required\n";
        }
else{

  # Get the list of PIDs from Unix

  #  check to see if the start script is already running...
  my $start_list = ` ps -ewf | grep nwstart  | grep -v grep `;
        #print "start list is $start_list\n";
  if ($start_list=~$startpid){
        print "Start script is currently running, no action required\n
+";
  }
  else{

  # Get the PID of the server
  my $pid = `cat $pid_file`;
  chomp($pid);

  # Get the list of PIDs from Unix
  #my $pid_list = `ps -ef | grep nwserver  | grep -v grep | cut -d" " 
+-f6`;
 my $pid_list=`ps -eo "%c %p" | grep $pid | cut -d" " -f2-`;
  chomp($pid_list);

#       print "debug:pidlist: $pid_list\n";
  # Get the lowest PID in the list
   $pid_list = substr($pid_list,rindex($pid_list," ") + 1,length($pid_
+list) 
        - rindex($pid_list, " "));
#       print "debug:pidlist:formatted: $pid_list\n";

  # If two aren't equal, restart server
  if(($pid ne $pid_list) )
  {
        if ($pid eq "0"){
                print "PID is set to zero please check server and star
+t manually
\n";
        }else{
        print "pids do not match: pid: $pid pidlist: $pid_list\n";
    my $now = localtime();
    print "Restarting server. . . ";
    system("$server > /dev/null");
    print "done (", $now, ")\n";
  }}else{
        print "server alive, going to sleep for $delay seconds\n";
        print "pid: $pid pidlist: $pid_list\n";
  }
 }
}
        close PIDS;
  # Go to sleep and try again later
  sleep($delay);
}

******************************************
root@never nwn]# more nwstop-ebro.pl
#!/usr/bin/perl

# Path to your Neverwinter Nights installation:
$path = "/usr/local/nwn/";

$pid_file = $path . ".nwnpid";
open (PIDS, "$pid_file") or die "nwn is not running or there is no pid
+file at $p
id_file\n";
while (<PIDS>) {
        chomp;
        if ($_ ne "0") {
                print "Killing pid $_\n";
                system("kill", "-9", "$_");
        }
}
#$pid = `cat $pid_file`;
#chomp($pid);
#print "my pid was $pid\n";
#print "my pid_file was $pid_file\n";
#system("kill", "-9", "$pid");
system("rm", "$pid_file");
[download]

ack nevervmind.. just looked at the output of $pid and $pidlist (never worked with pidof).. I get it.

coreolyn