Unknown ruby processes show up in "top" when running cronjob

Ruby
1

Hello,

I have a ruby (rails) cronjob.
When I monitor the execution of the cronjob with top, I notice that 2
more processes show up in there (instead of just one for my cronjob).

My cronjob captures the output of running a python script (with the
python script.py syntax). Can this be the cause? Why?

Thanks for any tips

2

[email protected] wrote:

Hello,

I have a ruby (rails) cronjob.
When I monitor the execution of the cronjob with top, I notice that 2
more processes show up in there (instead of just one for my cronjob).

My cronjob captures the output of running a python script (with the
python script.py syntax). Can this be the cause?

Yes.

Why?

Because the cronjob has its own process ID (1), then it needs to execute
the
Python interpreter (2) which runs the Python script (3). All separate
processes.

3

2006/11/20, Paul L. [email protected]:

Yes.

Why?

Because the cronjob has its own process ID (1), then it needs to execute the
Python interpreter (2) which runs the Python script (3). All separate
processes.

No: Python does not create two processes. However, the backtick
command uses a sub-shell to execute the command line, so: cron
launches Ruby (1 process), which launches “/bin/sh -c ‘python
script.py’” (1 process), which launches Python on the script (1
process). See the documentation for Kernel#` (the actual method
implementing the backtick command).

If you don"t need shell-specific features (pipes and redirections) in
the command line you execute, you can fork the Ruby process and then
call exec to replace that child process with python, thus bypassing
the intermediate shell. It’s probably not worth the trouble though.

4

I don’t think that’s the case, I’m talking about two more “ruby”
processes showing up there. (Python also appears)

I created two test scripts, one in ruby that launches (with python script.py) the other written in python (I also put some sleep(5) calls
in there for better observation). And as it is normal, only one “ruby”
process appears and for the duration of the python script, a “python”
process.

This probably has something to do with rails, but I don’t know what.

Thanks