especially item 2. wrapping a critical section in a lock is great. I prefer to have the default state be "running", so if the maint script ends for any reason t

especially item 2. wrapping a critical section in a lock is great. I prefer to have the default state be "running", so if the maint script ends for any reason the lock is discarded. If the maint proc gets stuck you can see it's holding the fd on the lockfile, or you can put a watchdog on it (implementation depending on your supervisor). i love these little bash gems, the only downside for me is I do feel like I'm stepping back into the 20th century whenever I do any heavy bash work...classic systems programming...