Django crontab automated setup issue in ubuntu development server

Question

Am on a windows10 local development and has I can't use cron am testing in a development server.

my working basecommand

from api.models import EnrolmentUniquePattern
from django.core.management.base import BaseCommand
import datetime
from django.utils.timezone import get_current_timezone

class Command(BaseCommand):
    
    help = 'Expires enrolment unique pattern objects which are out-of-date'

    def handle(self, *args, **options):
        print(EnrolmentUniquePattern.objects.filter(
            expiration_date__lt=datetime.datetime.now(get_current_timezone())).delete())

Am trying to setup django-crontab in a ubuntu 16.04 server and having a couple of issues.

pip install django-crontab

have it on my installed apps and requirements.txt

INSTALLED_APPS = [
 ...
 'django_crontab',
 ...
]

In the development.py settings that extend a base_settings.py have the cronjobs: Only trying to test a job that I already tested via command

CRONJOBS = [
    ('* * * * *', 'proregattaapi.cron.my_cron_job', '>> /var/log/django_cron_job.log'),
]

the cron.py:

from datetime import datetime

from django.utils.timezone import get_current_timezone
from api.models import EnrolmentUniquePattern


def my_cron_job():
    print('my_cron_test')
    EnrolmentUniquePattern.objects.filter(
        expiration_date__lt=datetime.datetime.now(get_current_timezone())).delete()

then pushed to the server hosted by digital ocean.

SSH into the server, activated the virtual environment and made the calls:

python manage.py crontab add
python manage.py crontab show
python manage.py crontab run 3a55bd7591de350aa5d5d7be7758f17c

in the above, got confirmation that the job was running, with the crontab run command. Did the job that was deleting models with an expire datetime shown above

but when I did:

python manage.py runserver

or left supervisior run the development server

the job didn't start or logged anything

Then I looked at:

crontab -e

and the output was:

* * * * * /root/.python-virtual-environments/proregatta-django-development-new-virtualenv/bin/python 
/var/www/development.proregatta.com/manage.py crontab run 3a55bd7591de350aa5d5d7be7758f17c >> /var/log/django_cron_job.log # django-cronjobs for proregattaapi

From my limited knowledge, I was thinking that crontab did the following: a django crontab install and living inside the running project would be sufficient.

Am I not activating the virtualenv before the cron running?

What am I missing?

Thank you in advance!

UPDATE:

CRONJOBS = [
    ('*/1 * * * *', 'proregattaapi.cron.my_cron_job', '>> /var/log/django_cron_job_test.log 2>&1 '),
]

started outputting the print:

print('my_cron_test') # line to /var/log/django_cron_job_test.log

but does not perform the call to delete.

Any advice ?

But when i force run the job does the call to delete the objects..

Different implementation

wasn't able to do it with django-crontab. So created an .sh script that basically does the same.

here is my script for my context to work:

#!/bin/bash
#chmod a+rx clean-expired-tokens.sh run when edited
cd ~/.python-virtual-environments/proregatta-django-development-new-virtualenv/bin
source activate
cd /var/www/development.proregatta.com/
python manage.py check_enrolment_unique_pattern_expiration --settings=proregattaapi.settings.development
deactivate

after enabling the execution of this file: opened:

crontab -e

edited to run once a week at sunday, and to log to that file:

0 0 * * 0 /root/clean-expired-tokens.sh >> /var/log/django_cron_job_test.log 2>&1

and this is with what I will going for now.

from what I understood (django-crontab) was detecting the virtual environment calling its python and trying to run the command but somehow it wasn't running in the venv.

Answer 1

I faced a similar issue, while running chron tab on my native ubuntu machine, it was not showing anything to the logs, using ubuntu 22.04

#MyApp/settings.py
INSTALLED_APPS = [
    ...
    'django_crontab',
    ....
]

CRONJOBS = [
    ('* * * * *', 'crontab.cron.my_cron_job')
]
#MyApp/cron.py
def my_cron_job():
    print("The Chron Job")

Do Make sure that everything is in place like installed apps, urls Now to the issue that you can't see anything related to cron on ubuntu

Intstall Postfix on Ubuntu

sudo apt install postfix

here is the docs for installation : Ubuntu Postfix install just click okay and configure(If you don't want anything else)

on your root directory /home/<username>

type cd /var/mail

list there using this command ls

and you should see a file with your username, if you do cat <username> you should see that your cron has worked there

.......
Date: Tue, 13 Jun 2023 21:13:01 +0530 (Timezone)
The Chron Job