Cannot automate the creation and intiailzation of a fabric using scripting

Issue

When Fuse administrators need to automate fully the installation of a fabric, starting with unpacking the distribution bundle and proceeding to create and populate containers, they frequently use a scripting approach similar this one:

unzip /path/to/fuse_installer.zip
cd jboss-fuse-6.x-xxx/
./bin/start
sleep 30
./bin/client -u admin -p password < script_file

The file script_file contains the initialization commands -- fabric:create, etc.

Such a script will most likely lead to an installation that behaves erratically and fails in unpredictable ways, if the set-up even completes. The main problem is determining how long the sleep command should allow for the Fuse process to start fully. If this delay is too short, the client utility will be able to connect and issue commands before the Fuse process is fully started; but if it is too long, the client utility could time out, and then the whole installation would fail.