Any howto "crontab" somewhere?

Software Support
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1

Hi,

I was facing today some issues with our crontab, so I’m wondering if there is a post/doc somewhere explaining how runScheduledTasks need to be called.

Thanks for your time,
m.

2

Hi @marc,

Start with the “Scheduled Tasks” section of docs/README.

Regards,
Alec Smecher
Public Knowledge Project Team

3

Done (looong time ago :slight_smile:), but the document only talk about this call:

$ php /path/to/ojs2/tools/runScheduledTasks.php

And as far as I know, it won’t be enough if you want to run statistics, DOI autoregistration, etc.

For instance, I run this hourly for each of my journals:

$ php tools/runScheduledTasks.php 
$ php tools/runScheduledTasks.php plugins/generic/usageStats/scheduledTasksAutoStage.xml
$ php tools/runScheduledTasks.php plugins/importexport/crossref/scheduledTasks.xml

But I don’t know what if other modules need a specific call or the first call will do the job.

Cheers,
m.

4

Hi @marc,

Sorry for the obvious answer!

The scheduled tasks should get registered in the database when the system gets installed. You can check what’s registered by executing in your database…

SELECT * FROM scheduled_tasks;

This should give you a list of tasks that’ll get executed when you run the runScheduledTasks.php script.

Regards,
Alec Smecher
Public Knowledge Project Team

1 Like
5

Thanks Alec. This query is a great trick.

I didn’t explain myself (probably because I didn’t understand much OJS cron till now).
What I really was asking for was a list of xmls that could should be called (if you are not using acron and the module is enabled).

This grep shows the full list, isn’t it?

$ grep "scheduledTasks.dtd" * -R

lib/pkp/dtd/scheduledTasks.dtd
plugins/importexport/crossref/scheduledTasks.xml
plugins/generic/pln/xml/scheduledTasks.xml
plugins/generic/objectsForReview/xml/scheduledTasks.xml
plugins/generic/usageStats/scheduledTasksAutoStage.xml
plugins/generic/usageStats/scheduledTasksExternalLogFiles.xml
plugins/generic/usageStats/scheduledTasks.xml
plugins/generic/alm/scheduledTasks.xml
registry/scheduledTasks.xml

So now a new (last) question rise to me:
If we don’t include a xml as a parameter, the script assumes “registry/scheduledTasks.xml”?

Cheers,
m.

6

Hi @marc,

Yes, registry/scheduledTasks.xml is the default.

Regards,
Alec Smecher
Public Knowledge Project Team

7

I’ve always thought it a bit non-intuitive that there are two distinct queues for scheduled tasks, and the database registry seems to be effectively ignored. The acron plugin uses the AcronPlugin::parseCronTab callback for plugins in addition to the registry/scheduledTasks.xml, and does this through a “setting” intermediary at that. The cron CLI calls use registry/scheduledTasks.xml as default, and requires explicit naming of any plugin tasks in separate cron calls. Neither uses the scheduled_tasks table, to my understanding. This leaves us with no way to, for example, use acron with a disabled scheduledTasksAutostage.xml in favor of scheduledTasksExternalLogFiles.xml, at least not without modifying the files.

The way I would have expected it to work would be for the core system and plugins to register tasks in the scheduled_tasks table, allow the administrator to enable or disable those tasks via the interface, and then consistently call the enabled tasks via either an acron run, or a cron call to the runScheduledTasks.php without a parameter.

Am I missing a piece, or ahead of my time?

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This is how all the CMS I know work, and this is why I thought adding a single line in your crontab was enough. :slight_smile: May be a xml-based distributed configuration could be more flexible but as @ctgraham points, is not the usual pattern and is less intuitive.

I think this is not a priority now, but IMHO would be nice to delegate the registering task in OJS and simplify the administration/installation. Indeed, if somebody is really interested in changing an specific plugin scheduled task it could be done directly in the DB and if we see this as a requirement, in a far future a frontend ui could be developed.

@asmecher what do you think?

9

Hi all,

I’ve passed this along to another developer to have a look at – stay tuned for a few days, much of the team is just finished a code sprint and will be traveling back home.

Regards,
Alec Smecher
Public Knowledge Project Team

1 Like
10

As was said, not a priority and no hurry at all, but would be great if somebody could take a look and estimate the efforts needed. Thanks @asmecher

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Is bumping allowed? :wink:

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HI @marc

Ah, sorry, apparently I have totally forgotten/lost this thread… I will take a look and think about…

Thanks!!!
Bozana

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No worry. Me too. :wink:

14

Hi all,

Sorry for the delay again… :frowning:
I agree with @marc and @ctgraham. I opened a new issue for that: unify the use of schedulesTasks for Cron and Acron · Issue #2550 · pkp/pkp-lib · GitHub.
I believe that this can be done after the 3.1 release which is currently our high priority.

Thanks a lot!!!
Best,
Bozaan

1 Like