Better Scheduler Than Cron? 66
Chanc_Gorkon asks: "I am looking for an open source job scheduler that is better than cron. I need a scheduler that has dependency checking, preemption (to stop jobs that access the same resources from running at the same time) and -full- logging. Cron e-mails are nice, but I usually end up cleaning them out with out reading. E-mailing the sysadmin -only- when a job does not get kicked off would be the preferable option. I have scoured Freshmeat and Sourceforge and have found nothing that comes close to what I am looking for. Do you guys have some options for me?"
Different timezones (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:Different timezones (Score:1)
That, by itself, would be a contribution, even if small, if directed to the cron maintainers.
launchd (Score:5, Informative)
Here's the manpage [apple.com]; here's a tutorial [macgeekery.com] (geared towards OS X developers, unfortunately), and here's John Siracusa's overview of launchd from Ars Technica [arstechnica.com].
Re:launchd (Score:5, Informative)
Re:launchd (Score:5, Informative)
Re:launchd (Score:2)
Cron (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Cron (Score:3, Insightful)
Cron can do the job. Just learn how to use it, and the other unix tools.
Many of the problems you mentioned can be solved with them.
- For the dependencies, you can use make or a similar tool.
- The emails are only sent if the process write to stderr.
Write a wraper script to call the processes you want, and use the shell redirections to send some log to stderr only in the case you want.
Wrapper? (Score:2)
Re:Cron (Score:2)
Re:Cron (Score:2)
Open source is better for me, and for many with sufficient fundage, but is not, and is not meat to be, better for everyone.
Make for dependencies? What am I doing? Compiling?? Care to point to examples?
Make is for managing a multi-part process with inter-dependencies. Compiling is just the most com
Re:Cron (Score:2)
Re:Cron (Score:3, Informative)
And check out this beatiful crontab from the Gentoo forums:
What's In Your Crontab? [gentoo.org]
Write some scripts (Score:5, Informative)
Serializing cron jobs that access some resource? Use "lockfile". Wrap it with something that claims the necessary locks in the right order, runs the real script, and then removes all the locks.
Only producing output in the case of an error? Write a script that saves output to a temporary file, and then cats the file if the exit value is not "success".
These should both be pretty basic tasks that can be done in shell, python, or perl. And you can take them with you t
Re:Write some scripts (Score:1, Insightful)
Personally I use daemontools + makefiles to do complex scheduled tasks. Just write a makefile that does what you need, then create a run file that does "make -C
Embellish with emailing on failure, keeping logs (multilog is good for that), whatever.
Keep it simple, use plain text and/or the filesystem to do your config, easy stuff.
Re:Write some scripts (Score:2)
Re:Write some scripts (Score:2)
Similiar question (Score:3, Informative)
launchd (Score:2)
IIRC launchd [apple.com] does everything you're asking for (and much much more), although I'm not sure if anyone's ported it to linux yet (knowing
Re:launchd (Score:2)
You need to write some scripts (Score:4, Insightful)
The features you're talking about are really beyond the range of cron or any other "scheduler." The reason cron exists is to allow you to run jobs at a scheduled time. That's it. If you need to ensure that different cron jobs don't conflict with each other, that's a sign that those jobs need to be combined into a single script. A simple shell script wrapper around the jobs can take care of the logic you need. Just call that wrapper from cron and you should be good.
Re:You need to write some scripts (Score:2)
Re:You need to write some scripts (Score:2)
A lot of us do know what schedulers do but here's some advice that you won't have to pay "mega bucks" for.
Re:You need to write some scripts (Score:2)
Re:You need to write some scripts (Score:2)
You seem to be saying that anyone who couldn't give you a perfect answer should not say anything at all. Every answer you received was someone going out of their way to offer you the best information that they had. If it wasn't good enough, you just say "Thanks, but that won't be suitable because...".
You're trying to make people wish they hadn't helped you at all, and that ruins this resou
What you're asking for... (Score:2)
Re:What you're asking for... (Score:2)
http://www.taricon.com/batchfaq.html [taricon.com] (XiBatch)
There's nothing open source that comes close to this. A scheduler like this is very common in Mainframe environments. I very rarely see anything like our mainframe one on UNIX. This one comes close. Production control cnan happen, but I want something to help set this up. I ain't got the time to setup all these little perl, bash , Python and etc crap to help me do the job schedule.
Re:What you're asking for... (Score:2)
fcron (Score:2)
Re:fcron (Score:2)
No brainer (Score:2)
Options (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Options (Score:2)
Re:Options (Score:2)
Yes it can manage across a cluster, but I'm pretty sure you can run it with a single (local) node in the cluster and all jobs with run locally. I haven't tried that, but in theory...
Have a look at the msub command [clusterresources.com]
The syntax is rather weird, but it seems to have everything you wanted. Except I can't quite work out whether it does dependency management. It seems
Re:Options (Score:2)
Re:Oy. (Score:1)
Re:Oy. (Score:1)
Re:Oy. (Score:2)
Let's see the top ten(Search String: Scheduler):
1. jCarnegie class scheduler
A Java class timetable scheduler.
Last updated: 2001
2. Saturn network job scheduler
Status: Saturn first pre-release. Although not ready for production (not something I can reccomend then)
Last updated: Last Month
3. PULSAR J2EE Scheduler
A task scheduler for J2EE a
Cfengine (Score:1)
I believe this can be relevant for you.
Yet Another /. Oddity (Score:4, Insightful)
What is it with 80% of Slashdot readers? A person asks a question, "What other colors can I paint my bathroom besides white." 80% of the responses run along the lines, "There's nothing wrong with the color white, you just need to coordinate better with the color white." Do recent Slashdot readers and posters not understand how to answer a question?
For Gods sake the guy asks for alternatives to Cron, not a fucking explanation on how Cron can be used to fulfill the criteria. It never ceases to amaze me on the behavior of Slashdot posters.
"I am looking for an open source job scheduler that is better than cron." You'll note it doesn't read, "How do I use Cron to do X." First we had to blast people with RTFA, RTFP, RTFM, RTSYW (Read the shit you write) and any other obscure reference we can invent. This is clearly a case of RTFP.
Honestly who here would be happy walking into a restaurant and ordering a steak only to get a piece of chicken and an 8 minute lecture by the waitress explaining that you just need to season the chicken properly rather then eating steak. When I order a steak I don't want a dissertation by the obviously vegan-hippie waitress on the horrors of animal slaughtering and the need to release cattle into the wild because they're the "Whales of the Great Plains." I want the bitch to ask me if I want it burnt, tough like leather, or crawling away to escape!
How about going to an auto dealership and asking to look at trucks only to be lead to a compact 2 door Yugo with a trailer attached with bungie cords and masking tape! Fuck just answer the poor guy's question.
--- / END RANT ---
Here at my current client's location we built a home-brewed scheduler using PERL and POSTGRES. Jobs can be scheduled with a full range of options including every X minutes, hours, and so on along with LAST DAY OF MONTH. The development time was only about 3 weeks if you can devote that kind of time otherwise several people (Who apparently do know how to answer a question) have posted some great links on some alternatives.
Re:Yet Another /. Oddity (Score:2)
Re:Yet Another /. Oddity (Score:1)
Re:Yet Another /. Oddity (Score:3, Insightful)
When you say "What's good today? I want something that tastes like steak, but is spicy..." then the waitress is answering your question properly when she says "We can put enough spice on the steak to burn your mouth off." She doesn't deserve several dozen rants (also common on Slashdot) about how you said you didn't want steak!
Now, one more thing before I'm done
Re:Yet Another /. Oddity (Score:2, Interesting)
Like Usenet, this is a discussion forum, not a service call center. If you want straight answers to straight questions, *pay* for that right. And as someone else writes, for god's sake don't turn to a geek forum. If you want discussion on what the problem really is and how to best approach it, that;s when you go too Slashdot or some such place, but don't expect to get a direct answer to your question.
In fact, I go to restaurants with a similar
Re:Yet Another /. Oddity (Score:2)
monit (Score:1)