Using cron_tab

anjanesh

How do I implement crons in my basic Django app ?
I tried django-crontabs but it doesn't seem to run.

I did python manage.py crontab add
I also tried running the cron command in the command line and it worked successfully.

So it's the cron that's not being executed ?

johns

django-crontab isn't well maintained according to pypi I would not suggest it.
Personally I use django management command structure. To schedule this in cron you would use ssh to connect and run crontab -e to add a line to cron using standard syntax.

anjanesh

So I would have to do something like python manage.py customCommand in crontab -e ?

peter

anjanesh Yes, here is an example of a cron job that should work:

0 * * * * cd ~/apps/your_django_app/your_project && ~/apps/your_django_app/env/bin/python manage.py customCommand >> ~/logs/apps/your_django_app/cron.log 2>&1

What's happening here is:

Change to the project directory: cd ~/apps/your_django_app/your_project
Run the management command using Python from your app's env: ~/apps/your_django_app/env/bin/python manage.py customCommand

anjanesh

How come we don' have to do source ~/apps/your_django_app/env/bin/actuvate before ~/apps/your_django_app/env/bin/python manage.py customCommand ?

nick

anjanesh By specifying the full path to the Python interpreter within the virtual environment, you bypass the need to activate the virtual environment.

webtweakers

Alternatively you could use celery or alternatives.

anjanesh

I ended up using django management commands.