Crond - Revision history

CevingR: /* Forcing Device to Awaken Out of Sleep Mode to Perform Cron (or Upstart) Jobs */

2010-10-27T16:37:17Z

Forcing Device to Awaken Out of Sleep Mode to Perform Cron (or Upstart) Jobs

CevingR: /* Forcing Device to Awaken Out of Sleep Mode to Perform Cron (or Upstart) Jobs */

2010-10-25T21:26:17Z

Forcing Device to Awaken Out of Sleep Mode to Perform Cron (or Upstart) Jobs

CevingR at 21:08, 25 October 2010

2010-10-25T21:08:14Z

CevingR at 18:10, 25 October 2010

2010-10-25T18:10:32Z

Roto: Added information about cron alternative

2010-04-11T03:28:06Z

Added information about cron alternative

Gpfountz: /* Enabling Stock Cron */

2010-02-07T16:00:12Z

Enabling Stock Cron

Xorg at 21:13, 3 February 2010

2010-02-03T21:13:20Z

Dolio: Add datestamps to the lines for the crondtest

2009-12-25T09:39:48Z

Add datestamps to the lines for the crondtest

Xorg: /* Enabling Stock Cron */

2009-12-16T18:59:16Z

Enabling Stock Cron

Robertjw: /* Enabling Stock Cron */

2009-10-26T05:53:25Z

Enabling Stock Cron

← Older revision		Revision as of 16:37, 27 October 2010
Line 132:		Line 132:
	I can imagine configuring a desktop computer to periodically awaken the device by sending it an email or a text message. I can't think of anything that can be configured on the device itself to cause notifications to get generated at a set interval, but that would be ideal, of course.		I can imagine configuring a desktop computer to periodically awaken the device by sending it an email or a text message. I can't think of anything that can be configured on the device itself to cause notifications to get generated at a set interval, but that would be ideal, of course.

−	Even better, I just discovered the excellent homebrew app Nodoze. It appears to do exactly what I've been longing for: keeps the device awake without an open card and without the screen remaining lit. I tested it while Govnah was running in Screenstate mode, and even though Nodoze was running and apparently keeping the device awake, the screenstate was off and Govnah was showing the CPU speed running in slow (250MHz in my case) mode~~. I haven't let it run long enough to ascertain its effect on battery life, but I'm hopeful that it won't be too bad~~. I've had it running for ~~about 40 minutes~~, and my battery ~~has gone down to 96%. That rate of decline should give me approximately 17 hours of runtime, which I think is not far from what I've been getting without Nodoze~~.	+	Even better, I just discovered the excellent homebrew app Nodoze. It appears to do exactly what I've been longing for: keeps the device awake without an open card and without the screen remaining lit. I tested it while Govnah was running in Screenstate mode, and even though Nodoze was running and apparently keeping the device awake, the screenstate was off and Govnah was showing the CPU speed running in slow (250MHz in my case) mode. I've had it running for a couple of days, and haven't noticed any dramatic effect on battery life.

← Older revision		Revision as of 21:26, 25 October 2010
Line 132:		Line 132:
	I can imagine configuring a desktop computer to periodically awaken the device by sending it an email or a text message. I can't think of anything that can be configured on the device itself to cause notifications to get generated at a set interval, but that would be ideal, of course.		I can imagine configuring a desktop computer to periodically awaken the device by sending it an email or a text message. I can't think of anything that can be configured on the device itself to cause notifications to get generated at a set interval, but that would be ideal, of course.

−	Even better, I just discovered the excellent homebrew app Nodoze. It appears to do exactly what I've been longing for: keeps the device awake without an open card and without the screen remaining lit. I tested it while Govnah was running in Screenstate mode, and even though Nodoze was running and apparently keeping the device awake, the screenstate was off and Govnah was showing the CPU speed running in slow (250MHz in my case) mode. I haven't let it run long enough to ascertain its effect on battery life, but I'm hopeful that it won't be too bad. I've had it running for about 20 minutes, and my battery has gone down to 98%. That rate of decline should give me approximately 17 hours of runtime, which I think is not far from what I've been getting without Nodoze.	+	Even better, I just discovered the excellent homebrew app Nodoze. It appears to do exactly what I've been longing for: keeps the device awake without an open card and without the screen remaining lit. I tested it while Govnah was running in Screenstate mode, and even though Nodoze was running and apparently keeping the device awake, the screenstate was off and Govnah was showing the CPU speed running in slow (250MHz in my case) mode. I haven't let it run long enough to ascertain its effect on battery life, but I'm hopeful that it won't be too bad. I've had it running for about 40 minutes, and my battery has gone down to 96%. That rate of decline should give me approximately 17 hours of runtime, which I think is not far from what I've been getting without Nodoze.

← Older revision		Revision as of 21:08, 25 October 2010
Line 131:		Line 131:

	I can imagine configuring a desktop computer to periodically awaken the device by sending it an email or a text message. I can't think of anything that can be configured on the device itself to cause notifications to get generated at a set interval, but that would be ideal, of course.		I can imagine configuring a desktop computer to periodically awaken the device by sending it an email or a text message. I can't think of anything that can be configured on the device itself to cause notifications to get generated at a set interval, but that would be ideal, of course.
		+
		+	Even better, I just discovered the excellent homebrew app Nodoze. It appears to do exactly what I've been longing for: keeps the device awake without an open card and without the screen remaining lit. I tested it while Govnah was running in Screenstate mode, and even though Nodoze was running and apparently keeping the device awake, the screenstate was off and Govnah was showing the CPU speed running in slow (250MHz in my case) mode. I haven't let it run long enough to ascertain its effect on battery life, but I'm hopeful that it won't be too bad. I've had it running for about 20 minutes, and my battery has gone down to 98%. That rate of decline should give me approximately 17 hours of runtime, which I think is not far from what I've been getting without Nodoze.

← Older revision		Revision as of 18:10, 25 October 2010
Line 126:		Line 126:

	I recommend rebooting the Pre at this point to make sure the new upstart script takes effect, although you should be able to just do "start <servicename>" once the upstart script is added to the event.d directory. In this case, "sleep 600" keeps the script alive for 10 minutes, but without it doing anything. When the script dies after the sleep concludes, upstart respawns it and the command is performed again.		I recommend rebooting the Pre at this point to make sure the new upstart script takes effect, although you should be able to just do "start <servicename>" once the upstart script is added to the event.d directory. In this case, "sleep 600" keeps the script alive for 10 minutes, but without it doing anything. When the script dies after the sleep concludes, upstart respawns it and the command is performed again.
		+
		+	==Forcing Device to Awaken Out of Sleep Mode to Perform Cron (or Upstart) Jobs==
		+	I think I just discovered a method for waking the device periodically, thus allowing it to perform cron jobs or other tasks even when not attached to a charger and not awake. I can't believe I didn't think of it before. If you do anything to cause a notification to appear on the phone, it will wake-up to display the notification. Once it's awake, it will execute any pending cron jobs, upstart jobs, or continue executing any already-executing script files.
		+
		+	I can imagine configuring a desktop computer to periodically awaken the device by sending it an email or a text message. I can't think of anything that can be configured on the device itself to cause notifications to get generated at a set interval, but that would be ideal, of course.

← Older revision		Revision as of 03:28, 11 April 2010
Line 101:		Line 101:
	Wed Jul 1 18:30:16 CDT 2009		Wed Jul 1 18:30:16 CDT 2009
	</nowiki></pre>		</nowiki></pre>
		+
		+	==Alternative to Crond Using Only Upstart==
		+	The following method is an alternate way to repeat a command at set time interval, but not if you need to run a command at a specific time. I developed this solution with the hope to get around the inconsistent behavior of cron when the phone falls asleep. Unfortunately, this way really doesn't work any better, but I currently use this method on my own Pre with some success. In this example, I setup a script to execute every 10 minutes.
		+
		+	Add a new upstart script file to the /etc/event.d directory, and name it whatever you want the upstart service to be called:
		+	<pre><nowiki>
		+	start on stopped finish
		+	stop on runlevel [!2]
		+	console none
		+
		+	respawn
		+
		+	exec /var/home/root/Every10Minutes.sh
		+	</nowiki></pre>
		+
		+	This upstart script will run the Every10Minutes.sh file and respawn it when it dies, so the trick is that a sleep command must be added to the end of the Every10Minutes.sh file:
		+	<pre><nowiki>
		+	#!/bin/sh
		+
		+	#Command to run every 10 minutes goes here
		+
		+	sleep 600
		+	</nowiki></pre>
		+
		+	I recommend rebooting the Pre at this point to make sure the new upstart script takes effect, although you should be able to just do "start <servicename>" once the upstart script is added to the event.d directory. In this case, "sleep 600" keeps the script alive for 10 minutes, but without it doing anything. When the script dies after the sleep concludes, upstart respawns it and the command is performed again.

@@ Line 12: / Line 12: @@
 # does work.
-start on stopped configure
+# below did not work on 1.3.5.1
-stop on started start_update
+#start on stopped configure
 # If the above do not work with WebOS above 1.3, try these...
 # The above doesn't start service since webos 1.3
-# start on stopped finish
+# below worked on 1.3.5.1
-# stop on runlevel [!2]
+start on stopped finish
 respawn

@@ Line 15: / Line 15: @@
 stop on started start_update
-# If the above do not work, try these - xorg
+# If the above do not work with WebOS above 1.3, try these - xorg
 # start on stopped finish
 # stop on runlevel [!2]
 respawn
@@ Line 50: / Line 49: @@
 # format:
 # minute(0-59) hour(0-23) day(1-31) month(1-12) weekday(0-6) command
+* * * * * echo "CronTest -" `date` >> /var/crondtest
 </nowiki></pre>
@@ Line 62: / Line 59: @@
 </nowiki></pre>
-This test will result in a test file at /var/crondtest that grows at the rate of one line per minute.
+This test will result in a test file at /var/crondtest that grows at the rate of one line per minute.  You can count the lines and output the end of the file with the following commands.  Also try a reboot to make sure everything is starting up properly.  If everything is working make sure to remove or comment out the CronTest task and restart crond.
 ==Alternative (ipkg-opt) Method==

← Older revision		Revision as of 05:53, 26 October 2009
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	*Note for clarification: I attempted this and it all works OK, but I can't figure out how to actually schedule jobs. I modified /etc/cron/crontabs/root, but nothing seems to happen. I also tried crontab -e, and that doesn't seem to do anything either. I suggest adding a note here clarifying what needs to be done to actually add a cron job. -irwinr		*Note for clarification: I attempted this and it all works OK, but I can't figure out how to actually schedule jobs. I modified /etc/cron/crontabs/root, but nothing seems to happen. I also tried crontab -e, and that doesn't seem to do anything either. I suggest adding a note here clarifying what needs to be done to actually add a cron job. -irwinr
		+
		+	*Clarification: Edit /etc/cron/crontabs/root with test content something like this:
		+
		+	<pre><nowiki>
		+	# format:
		+	# minute(0-59) hour(0-23) day(1-31) month(1-12) weekday(0-6) command
		+
		+	* * * * * echo "Hello" >> /var/crondtest
		+
		+	</nowiki></pre>
		+
		+	Then restart crond like this:
		+
		+	<pre><nowiki>
		+	sudo -i initctl stop crond
		+	sudo -i initctl start crond
		+	</nowiki></pre>
		+
		+	This test will result in a test file at /var/crondtest that grows at the rate of one line per minute.

	==Alternative (ipkg-opt) Method==		==Alternative (ipkg-opt) Method==