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Cron4Plone can do scheduled tasks in Plone

Project description

Product description

Cron4Plone can do scheduled tasks in Plone, in a syntax very like *NIX systems’ cron daemon. It plugs into Zope’s ClockServer machinery.

Installation

  1. Configure the ticker in the buildout (or zope.conf):

    [instance]
    ...
    eggs =
        ...
        Products.ClockServer
    zope-conf-additional =
      <clock-server>
          method /<your-plone-site>/@@cron-tick
          period 60
      </clock-server>
  2. Configure the scheduled tasks

    In the Plone site setup, go to the cron4plone configuration. This form can be used to enter cron-like jobs.

    The cron job should have 5 elements: minute, hour, day_of_month, month and command expression. For the command python and tal expression can be used.

    definition: m h dom m command

    Examples: * 11 * * portal/@@run_me 15,30 * * * python: portal.my_tool.runThis()

  3. Wait and see

    In the ZMI, go to the CronTool. If a cronjob has run the history is shown.

Rationale

Cron4plone uses the clockserver and allows advanced taask scheduling:

  • scheduled tasks at scheduled times. E.g. I want to perform a certain task at 3 AM at the first day of the month.

  • single thread running the task: We don’t want 2 threads running the same task at the same time. With only using clock server this might happen if a task takes longer than the tick period.

TODO

  • Day of week is missing in cron-like syntax, add it.

  • Improve doc test, currently test has basic coverage.

  • Perhaps make a configuration form that allows users without cron syntax knowledge to enter jobs.

License and credits

Authors: “Huub Bouma”, mailto:bouma@gw20e.com

“Kim Chee Leong”, mailto:leong@gw20e.com

License: This product is licensed under the GNU Public License version 2. See the file LICENSE included in this product.

Parts of the code were taken from “PloneMaintenance”, http://plone.org/products/plonemaintenance by “Ingeniweb”, http://www.ingeniweb.com/.

Changelog

1.0 - Unreleased

  • Initial release

Project details


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