Django custom command and cron

Question

I want my custom made Django command to be executed every minute. However it seems like python /path/to/project/myapp/manage.py mycommand doesn't seem to work while at the directory python manage.py mycommand works perfectly.

How can I achieve this ? I use /etc/crontab with:

****** root python /path/to/project/myapp/manage.py mycommand

Answer 1

I think the problem is that cron is going to run your scripts in a "bare" environment, so your DJANGO_SETTINGS_MODULE is likely undefined. You may want to wrap this up in a shell script that first defines DJANGO_SETTINGS_MODULE

Something like this:

#!/bin/bash

export DJANGO_SETTINGS_MODULE=myproject.settings 
./manage.py mycommand

Make it executable (chmod +x) and then set up cron to run the script instead.

Edit

I also wanted to say that you can "modularize" this concept a little bit and make it such that your script accepts the manage commands as arguments.

#!/bin/bash

export DJANGO_SETTINGS_MODULE=myproject.settings
./manage.py ${*}

Now, your cron job can simply pass "mycommand" or any other manage.py command you want to run from a cron job.

Answer 2

cd /path/to/project/myapp && python manage.py mycommand

By chaining your commands like this, python will not be executed unless cd correctly changes the directory.

Answer 3

If you want your Django life a lot more simple, use django-command-extensions within your project:

http://code.google.com/p/django-command-extensions/

You'll find a command named "runscript" so you simply add the command to your crontab line:

****** root python /path/to/project/myapp/manage.py runscript mycommand

And such a script will execute with the Django context environment.

Answer 4

This is what i have done recently in one of my projects,(i maintain venvs for every project i work, so i am assumning you have venvs)

 ***** /path/to/venvs/bin/python /path/to/app/manage.py command_name

This worked perfectly for me.

Answer 5

The runscript extension wasn't well documented. Unlike the django command this one can go anywhere in your project and requires a scripts folder. The .py file requires a run() function.

Answer 6

1. If its a standalone script, you need to do this:

   from django.conf import settings
   from django.core.management import setup_environ
   setup_environ(settings)
   
   #your code here which uses django code, like django model
   

2. If its a django command, its easier: https://coderwall.com/p/k5p6ag

   In (management/commands/exporter.py)

   from django.core.management.base import BaseCommand, CommandError
   
   class Command(BaseCommand):
       args = ''
       help = 'Export data to remote server'
   
       def handle(self, *args, **options):
           # do something here
   

And then, in the command line:

$ python manage.py exporter

Now, it's easy to add a new cron task to a Linux system, using crontab:

$ crontab -e

or $ sudo crontab -e if you need root privileges

In the crontab file, for example for run this command every 15 minutes, something like this:

# m h  dom mon dow   command
*/15 * * * * python /var/www/myapp/manage.py exporter