Is there a simple GUI application that will monitor running processes periodically and alert the user when a process is not running? The ones I have found are far too complex (eg Monit). I am sure this is trivial to achieve with a script, but I’d rather use a GUI.

A use case would look like this: every 60 minutes check if Syncthing is running and display a notification if it’s not. In my experience, Syncthing is very reliable when it launches successfully but there may be an issue with conflicting versions that may prevent it from running at boot. Syncthing has no way to alert the GUI user when something goes wrong and you may find after you left home that your laptop hasn’t synced. Checking manually is a headache, prone to errors and goes against the idea of fit and forget.

(Debian Trixie with KDE Plasma)

  • utopiah@lemmy.ml
    10·
    2 days ago

    1-liner would be something like watch -n 10 "pgrep konsole || kdialog --msgbox 'konsole no running'"

    namely :

    • watch to repeat a command at interval, e.g. every minute (could also be crontab)
    • pgrep to check if a process is running
    • kdialog on KDE to send a message to the current user (plenty more ways)
  • solrize@lemmy.ml
    5·
    2 days ago

    Normally you would want automatic restart rather than a user alert. These days you’d do that with systemctl, see the docs.

    • Stopwatch1986@lemmy.mlOP
      1·
      1 day ago

      True for most scenarios. Specifically with Syncthing, I find that it rarely fails and when it does there are good reasons and I need to do something about it (eg I used the wrong version config.xml recently trying to migrate between Syncthing setups).

  • gi1242@lemmy.world
    4·
    2 days ago

    i use syncthing, and start it via the systems service. i found it reliable. systems has a feature by which you can get notified on error (look up the onerror key), you might be able to do what u need with that.

    alternately, you can run a systemd timer that runs periodically and notifies you when your condition is met. if u want a pop-up, use zenity etc.

  • Vector@lemmy.worldEnglish
    4·
    2 days ago

    Hello! I don’t know of a desktop watchdog application that will do this for you, but you may be able to achieve this with a simple cron job. Probably just an hourly crontab entry that looks for a running process with the right name, and uses something like notify-send to send an alert if it’s not found. I’ll jump on the computer and have a quick play, though I run gnome not plasma so I don’t know how well it will translate.

    • Vector@lemmy.worldEnglish
      4·
      2 days ago

      I know you’re looking for a desktop solution, but here’s something that you can try in case you can’t find one – I’m betting that having a solution is better than having none!

      So I just had a quick muck around:

      • You can use pgrep to detect if a process with a given name is running
      • You can write to /dev/pts/0 to trigger a desktop notification
      • You can drop it into a cron job to run it automatically on a schedule

      As a test, the following command will look for a process called syncthing and send a desktop notification if it can’t find it:

      pgrep syncthing || echo "Syncthing is not running > /dev/pts/0"

      To set up a cron job:

      1. open a terminal
      2. open the editor with crontab -e (if you need to pick an editor, nano will probably be your best bet, it’s easiest to use)
      3. in the editor, add the following line to the end of the file: 0 * * * * pgrep syncthing || echo "Syncthing is not running" > /dev/pts/0
        • The 0 * * * * sets up the schedule (on the 0th minute of every hour, every day of the month, every month, on every day of the week)
        • Everything after that is the command to run
      4. save and quit

      If you ever want to get rid of it, just open the cron file again (crontab -e) and remove the line.

      I gave this a go on KDE under Wayland and it seems to do the trick. Good luck, I hope you find what you’re looking for!

      [edit-1] added step (2) to install libnotify-bin in case you don’t have it already. [edit-2] added XDG_RUNTIME_DIR to step (4) [edit-3] removed references to libnotify, replace with /dev/pts/0 (Nice one, @sun_is_ra@sh.itjust.works !)

      • Stopwatch1986@lemmy.mlOP
        2·
        2 days ago

        I went for this one and it works with both notify-send and /dev/pts/0. Not sure why it is better, but I opted for the latter. Simple, lightweight and versatile, suitable for any process.

        Any KDE Plasma users reading this, to enable notifications history for these you can follow the instructions here. Many thanks everyone.