Java.getRuntime() problems? Commons “exec” seems to be simple (with killing process from java example)

By neokrates, written on May 20, 2010

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neokrates
Email: uwarov@yahoo.com
Website: http://www.thinkplexx.com
Join date: 05-31-09
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I remember myself fighting with java.getRuntime() issues. More then a day was invested in different nuances of bash or cmd execution from java. Well, how nice that I can use Commons “exec” package and not care about most of those problems.

Software:

Java
Commons-exec 1.0

1

Bash script

In Java there is no easy way to kill external process directly (as far as I know).

So, I call bash from java to make it work. In my example I kill firefox process (just an example, in real life I am a firefox browser fan, really:) )

One-liner:

kill -9 `ps -ef | grep firefox | awk '{print $2}'`

2

Project setup with maven

I use Eclipse to create basic maven project, but any IDE would do the trick.

My pom.xml:

<project xmlns="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0"; xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"; xsi:schemaLocation="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0 http://maven.apache.org/maven-v4_0_0.xsd">;
  <modelVersion>4.0.0</modelVersion>
  <groupId>JavaProcessKiller</groupId>
  <artifactId>JavaProcessKiller</artifactId>
  <version>0.0.1-SNAPSHOT</version>
  <dependencies>
  <dependency>
  <groupId>org.apache.commons</groupId>
  <artifactId>commons-exec</artifactId>
  <version>1.0</version>
</dependency>
<dependency>
  <groupId>commons-io</groupId>
  <artifactId>commons-io</artifactId>
  <version>1.4</version>
</dependency>
  </dependencies>
</project>

3

Java class

Java class will make use of commons. I guess it works even simpler then that, but I had a problems putting my bash one-liner directly into CommandLine.parse. But if I dump a bash file using FileUtils.writeStringToFile

FileUtils.writeStringToFile(new File("killProcess.bash" , line);

It works like charm

so:
1 – Bash one liner

String line = "kill -9 `ps -ef | grep " + targetName + " | awk '{print $2}'`;";

2 – Write it into .bash file:

FileUtils.writeStringToFile(new File("killProcess.bash" , line);

3 – Run it

CommandLine commandLine = CommandLine.parse("bash killProcess.bash" ;
 
try {
 DefaultExecutor executor = new DefaultExecutor();
 executor.execute(commandLine);

4 – Go!

new JavaProcessKiller().run();

Full source:

import java.io.File;
import java.io.IOException;
 
import org.apache.commons.exec.CommandLine;
import org.apache.commons.exec.DefaultExecutor;
import org.apache.commons.exec.ExecuteException;
import org.apache.commons.io.FileUtils;
 
/**
 * This file tries to eliminate the existing 'firefox' process
 * from java. It is an example. Change it into real java process
 * killer by adding parameters. extend it with windows cmd process
 * kill script etc..
 *
 * @author diuw
 *
 */
public class JavaProcessKiller {
 private void run() {
 
  // Go for firefox(only current user process can be killed)
  String targetName = "firefox";
  String line = "kill -9 `ps -ef | grep " + targetName + " | awk '{print $2}'`;";
 
  // Create a tmp file. Write permissions!?
  try {
   FileUtils.writeStringToFile(new File("killProcess.bash" , line);
 
   // Execute the file we just creted. No flags are due if it is
   // executed with bash directly
   CommandLine commandLine = CommandLine.parse("bash killProcess.bash") ;
 
   try {
    DefaultExecutor executor = new DefaultExecutor();
    executor.execute(commandLine);
   } catch (ExecuteException e) {
    e.printStackTrace();
   } catch (IOException e) {
    e.printStackTrace();
   }
 
  } catch (IOException e1) {
   e1.printStackTrace();
  }
 
 }
 
 public static void main(String[] args) {
  new JavaProcessKiller().run();
 }
 
}