Develop Reference

How can I keep a python script on a remote server running after closing out of SSH?

I've coded a stock trading bot in Python3. I have it hosted on a server (Ubuntu 18.10) that I use iTerm to SSH into. Wondering how to keep the script actively running so that when I exit out of my session it won't kill the active process.
Basically, I want to SSH into my server, start the script then close out and come back into it when the days over to stop the process.

You could use nohup and add & at the end of your command to safely exit you session without killing original process. For example if your script name is script.py:
nohup python3 script.py &
Normally, when running a command using & and exiting the shell afterwards, the shell will terminate the sub-command with the hangup signal (kill -SIGHUP <pid>). This can be prevented using nohup, as it catches the signal and ignores it so that it never reaches the actual application.

You can use screen
sudo apt-get install screen
screen
./run-my-script
Ctrl-A then D to get out of your screen
From there you will be able to close out your ssh terminal. Come back later and run
screen -ls
screen -r $screen_running
The screen running is usually the first 5 digits you see after you've listed all the screens. You can see if you're script is still running or if you've added logging you can see where in the process you are.

Using tmux is a good option. Alternatively you could run the command with an & at the end which lets it run in the background.
https://tmuxcheatsheet.com/

I came here for finding nohup python3 script.py &
Right solution for this thread is screen OR tmux. :)

How do I keep a Python application running in an EC2 instance?

I have a python application which I uploaded to an EC2 instance as a file named "example.py". I want this code to be running continuously, as it has a while loop that calls a 3rd party Twitter API every minute. If I run "python3 example.py", and close the terminal, the SSH session terminates. Will the python application continue running in that EC2 instance? How can I make that sure? Thanks.

Quick Solution - You run in SSH terminal:
nohup python3 example.py &
(best if you don't wanna see what is going on later)
or
Best Solution - You create a Screen in SSH terminal:
screen
Then you press ctrl+a+d to detach from it. Then you can close SSH safely. If you want to see what is going on later, you can just:
screen -r

You can use the nohup command to disconnect from the current session and & to run in background:
nohup python3 example.py &

Executing python script without being connected to server

I need to execute python script on remote server (access through puTTY), but I don't have a stable Internet connection, and every time I execute the script I get problems after several minutes due to my Internet getting disconnected.
How do I remotely execute the script without being connected to server?
(e.g. I connect to server, run script, and can logout while executing)

You can use a Linux Screen, it opens a background terminal and keeps a shell active even through network disruptions.
Open the screen typing in your terminal $ screen and execute there your script, even if you lose connection it won't kill the process.
Here you will find a well explained How to for this program. I use it for my regular day working on remote.

try this
nohup your_script >/dev/null 2>&1 &
program will be running in background

How to continuously run a Python script on an EC2 server?

I've setup an Amazon EC2 server. I have a Python script that is supposed to download large amounts of data from the web onto the server. I can run the script from the terminal through ssh, however very often I loose the ssh connection. When I loose the connection, the script stops.
Is there a method where I tell the script to run from terminal and when I disconnect, the script is still running on the server?

You have a few options.
You can add your script to cron to be run regularly.
You can run your script manually, and detach+background it using nohup.
You can run a tool such as GNU Screen, and detach your terminal and log out, only to continue where you left off later. I use this a lot.
For example:
Log in to your machine, run: screen.
Start your script and either just close your terminal or properly detach your session with: Ctrl+A, D, D.
Disconnect from your terminal.
Reconnect at some later time, and run screen -rD. You should see your stuff just as you left it.
You can also add your script to /etc/rc.d/ to be invoked on book and always be running.

You can also use nohup to make your script run in the background or when you have disconnected from your session:
nohup script.py &
The & at the end of the command explicitly tells nohup to run your script in the background.

If it just a utility you run ad-hoc, not a service daemon of some kind, i would just run it in screen. Than you can disconnect if you want and open the terminal back up later... Or reconnect the terminal if you get disconnected. It should be in your linux distros package manager. Just search for screen
http://www.gnu.org/software/screen/

nohup runs the given command with hangup signals ignored, so that the command can continue running in the background after you log out.
Syntax:
nohup Command [Arg]...
Example:
nohup example.py
nohup rasa run
Also, you can run scripts continuously using the cron command.
For more:
https://ss64.com/bash/nohup.html
https://opensource.com/article/17/11/how-use-cron-linux

How to run server script indefinitely

I would like to run an asynchronous program on a remote linux server indefinitely. This script doesn't output anything to the server itself(other than occasionally writing information to a mysql database). So far the only option I have been able to find is the nohup command:
nohup script_name &
From what I understand, nohup allows the command to run even after I log out of my SSH session while the '&' character lets the command run in the background. My question is simple: is this the best way to do what I would like? I am only trying to run a single script for long periods of time while occasionally stopping it to make updates.
Also, if nohup is indeed the best option, what is the proper way to terminate the script when I need to? There seems to be some disagreement over what is the best way to kill a nohup process.
Thanks

What you are basically asking is "How do I create a daemon process?" What you want to do is "daemonize", there are many examples of this floating around on the web. The process is basically that you fork(), the child creates a new session, the parent exits, the child duplicates and then closes open file handles to the controlling terminal (STDIN, STDOUT, STDERR).
There is a package available that will do all of this for you called python-daemon.
To perform graceful shutdowns, look at the signal library for creating a signal handler.
Also, searching the web for "python daemon" will bring up many reimplementations of the common C daemonizing process: http://code.activestate.com/recipes/66012/

If you can modify the script, then you can catch SIGHUP signals and avoid the need for nohup. In a bash script you would write:
trap " echo ignoring hup; " SIGHUP
You can employ the same technique to terminate the program: catch, say, a SIGUSR1 signal in a handler, set a flag and then gracefully exit from your main loop. This way you can send this signal of your choice to stop your program in a predictable way.

There are some situations when you want to execute/start some scripts on a remote machine/server (which will terminate automatically) and disconnect from the server.
eg: A script running on a box which when executed 1) takes a model and copies it to a custer (remote server) 2) creates a script for running a simulation with the wodel and push it to server 3) starts the script on the server and disconnect 4) The duty of the script thus started is to run the simulation in the server and once completed (will take days to complete) copy the results back to client.
I would use the following command:
ssh remoteserver 'nohup /path/to/script `</dev/null` >nohup.out 2>&1 &'
eg:
echo '#!/bin/bash
rm -rf statuslist
mkdir statuslist
chmod u+x ~/monitor/concat.sh
chmod u+x ~/monitor/script.sh
nohup ./monitor/concat.sh &
' > script.sh
chmod u+x script.sh
rsync -azvp script.sh remotehost:/tmp
ssh remoteshot '/tmp/script.sh `</dev/null` >nohup.out 2>&1 &'
Hope this helps ;-)

That is the simplest way to do it if you want to (or have to) avoid changing the script itself. If the script is always to be run like this, you can write a mini script containing the line you just typed and run that instead. (or use an alias, if appropriate)
To answer you second question:
$ nohup ./test &
[3] 11789
$ Sending output to nohup.out
$jobs
[1]- Running emacs *h &
[3]+ Running nohup ./test &
$ kill %3
$ jobs
[1]- Running emacs *h &
[3]+ Exit 143 nohup ./test
Ctrl+c works too, (sends a SIGINT) as does kill (sends a SIGTERM)