Cronjob on sailfish?

answered 2014-12-04 15:23:12 +0200

marsch
3657 ●55 ●84 ●83

updated 2014-12-04 15:25:52 +0200

As a follow-up to a previous hint, here's a short description on how to easily setup recurring tasks with systemd. The systemd timer is the closest approach to a cron-like functionality while staying with the native system facilities.

To schedule a script with tasks that are recurring in an e.g. weekly manner, a corresponding timer file has to be created. There are two types of specifying timers, monotonic ones (relative to system boot) or realtime ones (well, related to the realtime clock). Traditional cron is using the realtime clock, so I'm going to stick with this.

weekly.timer

[Unit]
Description=Run weekly script

[Timer]
OnCalendar=weekly
Persistent=true     

[Install]
WantedBy=timers.target

Apart from the file that hooks into the timer, a related service file must be present:

weekly.service

[Unit]
Description=Run weekly script

[Service]
ExecStart=/home/nemo/sdcard/admin/weekly

Now put both files into /etc/systemd/system and enable the timer file via

sudo systemctl enable weekly.timer

EDIT: /home/nemo/sdcard/admin/weekly is of course a shell script with all tasks to be executed in a weekly manner.

answered 2014-05-21 17:30:21 +0200

AnonUser3396
1

updated 2014-05-21 17:31:34 +0200

Until a real cron is available, there is a way to create scheduled, repeating tasks not quite unlike cron jobs, using timed. The same thing that powers you alarm clock; it can be configured to run arbitrary commands (a bash script would be a sane choice). To set up say hourly, daily, weekly and monthly runs is relatively straightforward.

I tested the approach for my automated backup system and it seems to be working fine so far. To set up a daily job to run at midnight would require something like this:

$ timedclient-qt5 -a'whenDue;runCommand=YOUR_COMMAND_HERE@nemo' -r'hour=0;minute=0;everyDayOfWeek;everyDayOfMonth;everyMonth' -e'APPLICATION=YOUR_APPLICATION_NAME_HERE;TITLE=YOUR_TASK_NAME_HERE'

I'm not really sure what is the exact meaning of 'whenDue', but it seems to do the job. The run-as-user part of runCommand (@nemo) could of course be something else, too. Pay attention to the order of the parameters, there are requirements to it (read timedclient-qt5 --help).

This feels like a bit dirty solution, but in the absence of cron, I guess there are no other options.

EDIT: Sorry for the lousy line wrap, I don't know why it's wrapped in between - and the parameter letter...

answered 2014-07-07 19:19:11 +0200

juiceme
4027 ●54 ●78 ●89

Cron works pretty nice on sailfsh. The trick is to use DSME/iphb socket interface to get the reliable wakeup tick.

I have now run the basic sailfish port of cron-for-harmattan (https://gitorious.org/cron-for-harmattan) for a few weeks, and it is very stable; on my tests for a week it never missed a wakeup, however deep-sleeping the device was. It does not add too much of battery consumption, most of the time crond is sleeping on the socket waiting for the next event to occur. Yesterday, for example I removed charger at 06:00, ran the day with light tasks; some phonecalls, a little surfing on TMO, a little playing Heebo, wrote 2 emails, sent few SMS'es, no navigation that day (but location services enabled) When I went to sleep 19 hours later, the device still had 77% charge left.

My main use for cron is to trigger my email refresh; I have a fairly complicated requirements for that, impossible to implement with the email sync interface:

• on weekdays I want synchronizing every 10 minutes between 06:00 and 16:00, else I want syncing every hour until midnight. Between midnight and 06:00 no syncing whatsoever
• on weekends I want to sleep late, so start syncincg after 11:00am, and sync every two hours until midnight.

answered 2014-08-08 22:31:18 +0200

wickedsp1d3r
533 ●14 ●23 ●25

updated 2014-08-08 22:32:16 +0200

How about fcron? https://openrepos.net/content/nieldk/fcron (needs some permission stuff though)

Btw. I tested this basic cron package today and it is working flawlessly.

answered 2018-02-21 18:01:36 +0200

juiceme
4027 ●54 ●78 ●89

There was an issue in vixie-cron that was found in XperiaX altough it also exists in other devices.

(see https://together.jolla.com/question/179342/curl-in-crontab-empty-output/ for the problem)

I have now fixed the bug and updated binaries are available here;

• http://swagman.org/juice/vixie-cron-3.0pl2-2.src.rpm
• http://swagman.org/juice/vixie-cron-3.0pl2-2.armv7hl.rpm

And eventually in openrepos too when @ade gets around updating the files.

answered 2018-06-27 19:48:27 +0200

ds1979
1911 ●52 ●78 ●88

I just saw this post and would like to say that there is a nice app on openrepos called Sailcron. I have just installed it to have something sync and it works like a charm. :-)

answered 2014-08-09 06:19:49 +0200

droll
10097 ●163 ●243 ●257

systemd timers are what you need. I have implemented this. it's simple. all you need is a .timer file and a .service file in /etc/systemd/system

the timer file is the one you enable and start. the timer file references the service file.

answered 2017-03-29 18:08:08 +0200

Rikujolla
1718 ●30 ●41 ●51

I met this problem also in my app Rush Hour in OpenRepos. I want to update the xml data from the server say in every three minutes. Qml timers slow down disabling to achieve my target. After many trial and error I ended this solution.

Create a DBusAdaptor in qml:

DBusAdaptor {
    id: dbus
    bus: DBus.SessionBus
    service: 'as.kiu'
    iface: 'as.kiu'
    path: '/'
    //dbus-send --session --type=method_call --dest=as.kiu / as.kiu.update
    function update() {
        loadXmlIdle.start()
    }
}

That adaptor starts the timer loading the data. Then create QProcess header to be able to make the call as follows from qml:

    fupdater.start("timedclient-qt5",["-awhenDue;runCommand=dbus-send --session --type=method_call --dest=as.kiu / as.kiu.update", "-eAPPLICATION=Rush_hour;TITLE=Wake_up;ticker=180"]);

The code is in github. If you find it useful, please start reading from file: https://github.com/Rikujolla/trafficviewer/blob/dev011/qml/harbour-trafficviewer.qml