Schedule a Rscript Crontab Everyminute

Schedule a Rscript crontab everyminute

I can see the dreaded smart quotes in your cron entry. This often happens when you copy-paste from word processors. Backspace over those abominations and re-type normal quotes. Change:

* * * * * Rscript “/Users/Home/Desktop/David Studios/Scraper/compiler.R”

to

* * * * * Rscript "/Users/Home/Desktop/David Studios/Scraper/compiler.R"

See the difference? It's subtle and easy to miss.

Update:

I see you've made the above change and it's still not working for you. Verify that Rscript is in the $PATH environment variable for the user that owns this crontab. Alternatively, you can simply specify the fully qualified path to Rscript directly in the cron entry. You can find that quickly on the command line with the following command:

which Rscript

Update #2:

I see by your comments that the fully qualified path to Rscript is /usr/local/bin/Rscript. I'm guessing /usr/local/bin is not in the path for the user who owns this crontab. Try using the fully qualified path, like this:

* * * * * /usr/local/bin/Rscript "/Users/Home/Desktop/David Studios/Scraper/compiler.R"

Rscript in Crontab not running in Ubuntu Server 18.04

Is it possible that it is running correctly and the results are not being captured? Cron won't return results to active terminal.

The following worked for me on an Ubuntu Server 16.04

First, confirmed that the test script return was expected when run from Rscript terminal:

root@mytester:~/myrscripts# Rscript test.R

returns

  [1] "Hello, World!"

Second, setup cron job via:

crontab -e

entered this line

* * * * * Rscript ~/myrscripts/test.R >> ~/mycronlog.log

notice I am piping results to a log (appending)

Third, checked log after a few minutes:

root@mytester:~# cat mycronlog.log 
[1] "Hello, World!"
[1] "Hello, World!"
[1] "Hello, World!"
[1] "Hello, World!"
[1] "Hello, World!"

Using crontab to execute script every minute and another every 24 hours

every minute:

* * * * * /path/to/php /var/www/html/a.php

every 24hours (every midnight):

0 0 * * * /path/to/php /var/www/html/reset.php

See this reference for how crontab works: http://adminschoice.com/crontab-quick-reference, and this handy tool to build cron jobx: http://www.htmlbasix.com/crontab.shtml

CronR runs only once (frequency set to minutely), then doesn't run anymore afterwards

So I've done some more digging and finally found the issue, it looks like it's due to a bug.

I came across this explanation when I started researching how to use the linux terminal to schedule the jobs instead of R https://opensource.com/article/17/11/how-use-cron-linux

The cron and at services enable sysadmins to schedule tasks to run at
a specific time in the future. The at service specifies a one-time
task that runs at a certain time. The cron service can schedule tasks
on a repetitive basis, such as daily, weekly, or monthly

Based on this I thought that maybe specifying both the 'frequency' and the 'at' variable within cronR could be the issue and turns out that this was the case. After commenting out the 'at' argument, my script started running each minute as I wanted it to. The documentation gives examples where both arguments are used together however which makes me think its either a bug, or a warning should be produced by the package informing you of this hidden interaction.

I was using cronR version 0.4.2

How do set cron to run my script every 40mins/25mins?

It always splits the current hour only.

40/40 = 1 so it runs every 40th minute of an hour.

*/5 would do 5, 10, 15...

You should go for larger intervals.

Do */30 for your 25 minute interval and every 60 minutes for your 40 minutes interval.

Otherwise set up two crontabs for your script:

0,40 */2 * * * /path/to/script/foo.sh
20 1,3,5,7,9,11,13,15,17,19,21,23 * * * /path/to/script/foo.sh

Run CRON job everyday at specific time

Cron utility is an effective way to schedule a routine background job at a specific time and/or day on an on-going basis.

Linux Crontab Format

MIN HOUR DOM MON DOW CMD

Example::Scheduling a Job For a Specific Time

The basic usage of cron is to execute a job in a specific time as shown below. This will execute the Full backup shell script (full-backup) on 10th June 08:30 AM.

Please note that the time field uses 24 hours format. So, for 8 AM use
8, and for 8 PM use 20.

30 08 10 06 * /home/yourname/full-backup

• 30 – 30th Minute
• 08 – 08 AM
• 10 – 10th Day
• 06 – 6th Month (June)
• *– Every day of the week

In your case, for 2.30PM,

30 14 * * * YOURCMD

1. 30 – 30th Minute
2. 14 – 2PM
3. *– Every day
4. *– Every month
5. *– Every day of the week

To know more about cron, visit this website.

Running a cron every 30 seconds

You have */30 in the minutes specifier - that means every minute but with a step of 30 (in other words, every half hour). Since cron does not go down to sub-minute resolutions, you will need to find another way.

One possibility, though it's a bit of a kludge^(a), is to have two jobs, one offset by 30 seconds:

# Need these to run on 30-sec boundaries, keep commands in sync.
* * * * *              /path/to/executable param1 param2
* * * * * ( sleep 30 ; /path/to/executable param1 param2 )

You'll see I've added comments and formatted to ensure it's easy to keep them synchronised.

Both cron jobs actually run every minute but the latter one will wait half a minute before executing the "meat" of the job, /path/to/executable.

For other (non-cron-based) options, see the other answers here, particularly the ones mentioning fcron and systemd. These are probably preferable assuming your system has the ability to use them (such as installing fcron or having a distro with systemd in it).

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If you don't want to use the kludgy solution, you can use a loop-based solution with a small modification. You'll still have to manage keeping your process running in some form but, once that's sorted, the following script should work:

#!/bin/env bash

# Debug code to start on minute boundary and to
# gradually increase maximum payload duration to
# see what happens when the payload exceeds 30 seconds.

((maxtime = 20))
while [[ "$(date +%S)" != "00" ]]; do true; done

while true; do
    # Start a background timer BEFORE the payload runs.

    sleep 30 &

    # Execute the payload, some random duration up to the limit.
    # Extra blank line if excess payload.

    ((delay = RANDOM % maxtime + 1))
    ((maxtime += 1))
    echo "$(date) Sleeping for ${delay} seconds (max ${maxtime})."
    [[ ${delay} -gt 30 ]] && echo
    sleep ${delay}

    # Wait for timer to finish before next cycle.

    wait
done

The trick is to use a sleep 30 but to start it in the background before your payload runs. Then, after the payload is finished, just wait for the background sleep to finish.

If the payload takes n seconds (where n <= 30), the wait after the payload will then be 30 - n seconds. If it takes more than 30 seconds, then the next cycle will be delayed until the payload is finished, but no longer.

You'll see that I have debug code in there to start on a one-minute boundary to make the output initially easier to follow. I also gradually increase the maximum payload time so you'll eventually see the payload exceed the 30-second cycle time (an extra blank line is output so the effect is obvious).

A sample run follows (where cycles normally start 30 seconds after the previous cycle):

Tue May 26 20:56:00 AWST 2020 Sleeping for 9 seconds (max 21).
Tue May 26 20:56:30 AWST 2020 Sleeping for 19 seconds (max 22).
Tue May 26 20:57:00 AWST 2020 Sleeping for 9 seconds (max 23).
Tue May 26 20:57:30 AWST 2020 Sleeping for 7 seconds (max 24).
Tue May 26 20:58:00 AWST 2020 Sleeping for 2 seconds (max 25).
Tue May 26 20:58:30 AWST 2020 Sleeping for 8 seconds (max 26).
Tue May 26 20:59:00 AWST 2020 Sleeping for 20 seconds (max 27).
Tue May 26 20:59:30 AWST 2020 Sleeping for 25 seconds (max 28).
Tue May 26 21:00:00 AWST 2020 Sleeping for 5 seconds (max 29).
Tue May 26 21:00:30 AWST 2020 Sleeping for 6 seconds (max 30).
Tue May 26 21:01:00 AWST 2020 Sleeping for 27 seconds (max 31).
Tue May 26 21:01:30 AWST 2020 Sleeping for 25 seconds (max 32).
Tue May 26 21:02:00 AWST 2020 Sleeping for 15 seconds (max 33).
Tue May 26 21:02:30 AWST 2020 Sleeping for 10 seconds (max 34).
Tue May 26 21:03:00 AWST 2020 Sleeping for 5 seconds (max 35).
Tue May 26 21:03:30 AWST 2020 Sleeping for 35 seconds (max 36).

Tue May 26 21:04:05 AWST 2020 Sleeping for 2 seconds (max 37).
Tue May 26 21:04:35 AWST 2020 Sleeping for 20 seconds (max 38).
Tue May 26 21:05:05 AWST 2020 Sleeping for 22 seconds (max 39).
Tue May 26 21:05:35 AWST 2020 Sleeping for 18 seconds (max 40).
Tue May 26 21:06:05 AWST 2020 Sleeping for 33 seconds (max 41).

Tue May 26 21:06:38 AWST 2020 Sleeping for 31 seconds (max 42).

Tue May 26 21:07:09 AWST 2020 Sleeping for 6 seconds (max 43).

If you want to avoid the kludgy solution, this is probably better. You'll still need a cron job (or equivalent) to periodically detect if this script is running and, if not, start it. But the script itself then handles the timing.

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^(a) Some of my workmates would say that kludges are my specialty :-)

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