[Grok-dev] spotlight on: z3c.recipe.usercrontab

[Wichert Akkerman]

Perhaps it would be useful to post these spotlights on grok.zope.org to 
get some exposure? And perhaps get the syndicated to some planets as 
wel. Only posting them to grok-dev feels a little bit like preaching to 
choir.

Wichert.


On 2010-1-17 11:57, Jan-Wijbrand Kolman wrote:
> Spotlight on...
>
> z3c.recipe.usercrontab[1] is a zc.buildout[2] recipe. With this recipe you can
> define crontab[2] rules that will be installed in the user's crontab. As such it
> is probably only useful on unix-like systems. It has been tested on Linux and
> Mac OS X.
>
> With this recipe it is easy to define recurring actions related to the
> deployment of your application. Examples are: periodically checking the event
> log file for irregularities[4], sending emails from a mail queue, or have cron
> start your application after a system reboot.
>
> The `usercrontab` part in your `buildout.cfg` file could look like this::
>
>    [buildout]
>    ...
>    parts = ...
>            logcheck
>            reboot
>
>    [logcheck]
>    recipe = z3c.recipe.usercrontab
>    times = 39 * * * *
>    command = [cmd]
>
>    [reboot]
>    recipe = z3c.recipe.usercrontab
>    times = @reboot
>    command = ${buildout:directory}/bin/zopectl start
>
> After running ``./bin/buildout` you can inspect the result of the recipe with::
>
>    $ crontab -l
>
> There you will see something like::
>
>    # Generated by /home/jw/projects/sandbox/usercrontab [logcheck]
>    39 * * * *	/home/jw/projects/sandbox/usercrontab/bin/[cmd]
>    # END /home/jw/projects/sandbox/usercrontab [logcheck]
>
>    # Generated by /home/jw/projects/sandbox/usercrontab [reboot]
>    @reboot	/home/jw/projects/sandbox/usercrontab/bin/zopectl start
>    # END /home/jw/projects/sandbox/usercrontab [reboot]
>
> The markers around the actual crontab line are important: z3c.recipe.usercrontab
> will use this markers to see if the buildout part already did its work in order
> to prevent duplicates. The markers are also used to remove these lines from the
> crontab, when uninstalling the part.
>
> The Python Package Index page for z3c.recipe.usercrontab explain the use of the
> `times` and `command` directives in more detail.
>
> [1] http://pypi.python.org/pypi/z3c.recipe.usercrontab
>
> [1] http://www.buildout.org/ and http://pypi.python.org/pypi/zc.buildout
>
> [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cron
>
> [3] for example with: http://pypi.python.org/pypi/tha.logcheck
>
>
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-- 
Wichert Akkerman <wichert at wiggy.net>   It is simple to make things.
http://www.wiggy.net/                  It is hard to make things simple.