Set up cron jobs for action scripting
Last updated on: 2019-02-05
Authored by: Rackspace Community
This article describes how to set up directories and scripts to have cron run different actions at regular times.
This article uses the pico text editor, but you can use any text editor that you want, such as
vi or nano.
Set up system scripts and directories
Use the following commands to set up the system scripts and directories for cron to run:
sudo mkdir /usr/local/sbin/continuous.active
sudo mkdir /usr/local/sbin/continuous.inactive
sudo mkdir /usr/local/sbin/hourly.active
sudo mkdir /usr/local/sbin/hourly.inactive
sudo mkdir /usr/local/sbin/daily.active
sudo mkdir /usr/local/sbin/daily.inactive
sudo mkdir /usr/local/sbin/weekly.active
sudo mkdir /usr/local/sbin/weekly.inactive
Set up script for continuous jobs
Run the following command to create the script file for continuous jobs and open it in a text editor:
sudo pico /usr/local/sbin/continuous.sh
Insert the following script to run each container and all scripts held inside at the specified interval:
#!/bin/bash
ACTIVE_SCRIPTS_DIR=/usr/local/sbin/continuous.active
for module in `find "$ACTIVE_SCRIPTS_DIR" -maxdepth 1 -mindepth 1 -type f`; do
if [ -x $module ]; then
$module
fi
done
Run the following command to make the continuous.sh script executable:
sudo chmod u+x /usr/local/sbin/continuous.sh
Set up script for hourly jobs
Run the following command to create the script file for hourly jobs and open it in a text editor:
sudo pico /usr/local/sbin/hourly.sh
Insert the following script to run each container and all scripts held inside hourly:
#!/bin/bash
ACTIVE_SCRIPTS_DIR=/usr/local/sbin/hourly.active
for module in `find "$ACTIVE_SCRIPTS_DIR" -maxdepth 1 -mindepth 1 -type f`; do
if [ -x $module ]; then
$module
fi
done
Run the following command to make the hourly.sh script executable:
sudo chmod u+x /usr/local/sbin/hourly.sh
Set up script for daily jobs
Run the following command to create the script file for daily jobs and open it in a text editor:
sudo pico /usr/local/sbin/daily.sh
Insert the following script to run each container and all scripts held inside daily:
#!/bin/bash
ACTIVE_SCRIPTS_DIR=/usr/local/sbin/daily.active
for module in `find "$ACTIVE_SCRIPTS_DIR" -maxdepth 1 -mindepth 1 -type f`; do
if [ -x $module ]; then
$module
fi
done
Run the following command to make the daily.sh script executable:
sudo chmod u+x /usr/local/sbin/daily.sh
Set up script for weekly jobs
Run the following command to create the script file for weekly jobs and open it in a text editor:
sudo pico /usr/local/sbin/weekly.sh
Insert the following script to run each container and all scripts held inside weekly:
#!/bin/bash
ACTIVE_SCRIPTS_DIR=/usr/local/sbin/weekly.active
for module in `find "$ACTIVE_SCRIPTS_DIR" -maxdepth 1 -mindepth 1 -type f`; do
if [ -x $module ]; then
$module
fi
done
Run the following command to make the weekly.sh script executable:
sudo chmod u+x /usr/local/sbin/weekly.sh
Add scripts to the crontab file
A crontab file contains a list of commands meant to be run at specified times. Use the following command to edit the crontab file:
sudo crontab -e
Each line in the crontab file has five date and time fields in the following format:
minute (0-59) hour (0-23) day (1-31) month (1-12) weekday (0-6)
If you want to run a script some number of times per time unit, you can use the format */n, where n is the number
of times that you want the script to run.
Add the following entries to the crontab file:
MAILTO= youremail@domain.com
*/5 * * * * /usr/local/sbin/continuous.sh
6 */1 * * * /usr/local/sbin/hourly.sh
16 02 * * * /usr/local/sbin/daily.sh
26 03 * * 0 /usr/local/sbin/weekly.sh
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