Products.cron4plone 0.2

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