CODEWITHSUNDEEP
pythondjangocron
questions post
questions post

Reputation: 57

How to schedule a job using python and crontab?

I would like to send an automated mail using python, django and crontab. So I did the following things.

Created a cron_tab.py(which is inside the folder home/myhome/django/myapp/registration/cron_tab.py) which looks like below: 

from django.core.mail import send_mail, EmailMessage,EmailMultiAlternatives

subject, from_email, to = 'hello', '[email protected]', '[email protected]'
text_content = 'This is an important message.'
html_content = '<p>This is an <strong>important</strong> message.</p>'
msg = EmailMultiAlternatives(subject, text_content, from_email, [to])
msg.attach_alternative(html_content, "text/html")
msg.send()

And using terminal I entered in to crontab by issuing the below command

crontab -e

I scheduled the task like 

* 1 * * *  /home/myhome/django/myapp/registration/cron_tab.py

But I didn't mail receive. What am I doing wrong? Please Somebody help me. After changing the file mode I get the following error and pasted the traceback

 myhome@myhome:~/django/myapp/registration$ ./cron_tab.py
 from: can't read /var/mail/django.core.mail
 ./cron_tab.py: line 3: subject: command not found
 ./cron_tab.py: line 4: from_email: command not found
 ./cron_tab.py: line 5: to: command not found
 ./cron_tab.py: line 6: text_content: command not found
 ./cron_tab.py: line 7: html_content: command not found
 ./cron_tab.py: line 8: syntax error near unexpected token `('
 ./cron_tab.py: line 8: `msg = EmailMultiAlternatives(subject, text_content, from_email,
 [to])'

Upvotes: 1

Views: 403

Answers (3)

avenet
avenet

Reputation: 3043

  1. Check that your Python script works executing it separately.
  2. Check that your Python script can be executed via running ./cron_tab.py on the /home/myhome/django/myapp/registration/ directory. If this does not work execute: chmod +x /home/myhome/django/myapp/registration/cron_tab.py anywhere on your command line, making sure your script starts with #!/usr/bin/env python pointing to your Python interpreter.

If you are not using any other feature from Django (like models, querysets, etc), this approach for sending the email should work as a separate script not knowing anything from Django. On the other hand, if using some of the Django features you will have two approaches to run this script:

a) As a management command => If using this approach, I recommend you creating a separate script for the crontab which only will run:

cd /home/myhome/django/

python manage.py <your_command> (On this case: )

b) As a Python script loading your Django configuration => You can run your script using directly.

Upvotes: 1

Juan Fco. Roco
Juan Fco. Roco

Reputation: 1638

The issue is that you are using a Python script that is not probably an executable and it doesn't declare the executable in the first line of the line.

You have two options:

1) Add the python interpreter in the cron call (in this example the python interpreter is in /usr/bin/python:

  • 1 * * * /usr/bin/python /home/myhome/django/myapp/registration/cron_tab.py

2) Made the python script executable (2.1+2.2)

2.1.- Made the file executable

$ chmod +x /home/myhome/django/myapp/registration/cron_tab.py

2.2.- Edit the file and in the first line declare in the interpreter:

#!/usr/bin/python
from django.core.mail import send_mail, EmailMessage,EmailMultiAlternatives

Upvotes: 2

catavaran
catavaran

Reputation: 45575

I think your cron_tab.py didn't read django configuration from setting.py. What happens then you run this script from the shell?

Anyway you should consider to use custom management command for this task.

Upvotes: 2

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