broken nohup?

[Matthew Miller]

On Wed, Oct 20, 2004 at 07:39:47PM -0400, Sam Steingold wrote:
> nohup does not let me log out:
> $ ssh my-host
> my-host:bash$ nohup foo &
> my-host:bash$ exit
> <hangs here, ssh never terminates>.
> I have to kill the ssh process externally.

This is a long-standing problem with OpenSSH. In fact, it's even earned a
FAQ on their web site. See <http://www.openssh.com/faq.html#3.10>. Not that
there's a solution there -- to my knowledge, there just isn't one. (Well,
there's a few suggested patches, but they haven't undergone review.)

It's worth noting -- and knowing this makes their faq response make sense --
that bash, by default, *doesn't* send a HUP on exit. This means two things
for you: first, there's really no need to use the nohup command, and second,
the "workaround" they present is no workaround at all. The real workaround
is the one you've been using -- kill the ssh process externally.

Sorry this isn't really a helpful answer. But at least you'll know you're
not alone.


-- 
Matthew Miller           mattdm at mattdm.org        <http://www.mattdm.org/>
Boston University Linux      ------>                <http://linux.bu.edu/>