CODEWITHSUNDEEP
djangocron
Anurag Sharma
Anurag Sharma

Reputation: 5039

cron not firing at regular intervals

I want to set a cron that fetches some stories from an api every 5 minutes and shoot a mail if any new stories comes up. Here is my crontab file. (Used a django management command to do so). I fired the management command and its sending me the correct info, but when I am trying to set a cronjob for the same, its not firing. Here is my crontab file

vi /etc/crontab

# /etc/crontab: system-wide crontab
# Unlike any other crontab you don't have to run the `crontab'
# command to install the new version when you edit this file
# and files in /etc/cron.d. These files also have username fields,
# that none of the other crontabs do.

SHELL=/bin/sh
PATH=/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/sbin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin

# m h dom mon dow user  command
17 *    * * *   root    cd / && run-parts --report /etc/cron.hourly
25 6    * * *   root    test -x /usr/sbin/anacron || ( cd / && run-parts --report /etc/cron.daily )
47 6    * * 7   root    test -x /usr/sbin/anacron || ( cd / && run-parts --report /etc/cron.weekly )
52 6    1 * *   root    test -x /usr/sbin/anacron || ( cd / && run-parts --report /etc/cron.monthly )

5 * * * * root /home/anurag/projects/virtualenvs/django6/bin/python /home/anurag/Documents/HNStories/hnstories/manage.py get_stories >> /home/anurag/cron_log.txt

Here are its permission

ls -l /etc/crontab 
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 884 Aug 17 20:20 /etc/crontab

Also I am not able to see any warning and error in syslog file

cat /var/log/syslog | grep crontab
Aug 17 12:58:01 anurag cron[1257]: (*system*) RELOAD (/etc/crontab)
Aug 17 17:24:01 anurag cron[8534]: (*system*) RELOAD (/etc/crontab)
Aug 17 20:21:01 anurag cron[1139]: (*system*) RELOAD (/etc/crontab)

I also tried to restart the crontab and restart my computer. But I am not able to fix this issue.

Upvotes: 0

Views: 144

Answers (1)

klasske
klasske

Reputation: 2174

The correct syntax for executing every 5 minutes would be

*/5 * * * * root /home/anurag/projects/virtualenvs/django6/bin/python /home/anurag/Documents/HNStories/hnstories/manage.py get_stories >> /home/anurag/cron_log.txt

Another reason why the command isn't executing might be a missing newline at the end of /etc/crontab

EDIT: You might also want to look into django-extensions which provides a command extension (runjobs) to run scheduled jobs.

Upvotes: 1

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