I have a Python program I run at all times of the day that alerts me when something I am looking for online is posted. I want to give this to my employees but I only want to have it email them during business hours.
I have a Ubuntu server and use a .sh. I have a command in crontab that runs on startup.
How do I make my command run from 9-5?
You could create a cronjob that starts the script every 5 minutes (or whatever often you want it to run) and additionally modify the script such that it creates a .lock file which it removes on exiting, but if it encounters it at the beginning it won't do anything (this way you don't have a long-running script active multiple times).
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Background
I'm struggling to find a example of WDT in the way I want to use it. Wondering if I misunderstanding its use.
my python writing is pure hobby, honestly Classes intimidate me.
in short my program reads a number of sensors connected to a raspberry pi and writes the data to a cloud hosted object database.
i have an intermittent error that while I try to figure out I want to implement a based watchdog timer.
This is what I'd like to implement so in the very least I continue to collect and store data.
I've read about the builtin watchdog timer the raspberry pi has built in here: https://diode.io/raspberry%20pi/running-forever-with-the-raspberry-pi-hardware-watchdog-20202/
The problem I want the raspberry pi to reboot if my program hangs, but when that happens the OS is still fine, so the solution in the link above is not effective.
What I'd like to implement:
set the builtin watchdog timer to reboot the raspberry pi after 200 seconds without restarting (patting?) the timer. I think the instructions for this are in the link above.
Within my python script, after I iterate through each sensor, restart (or pat?) the watchdog timer and if 200 seconds elapse between pattings (meaning my program hangs) then RPi reboots.
is this possible?
can someone help me with some simple code? I was hoping to keep this simple and avoid classes and/or threads...
thank you in advance
The WDT is probably not the right solution for the problem you are describing. Based on your description, it sounds like what you have is a program that is intended to run periodically (either on a fixed schedule or in response to some event), and that program currently has a bug that is causing it to hang intermittently and never complete it's task or terminate.
The first and best way to solve that, I'm sure you can guess, is to fix the bug. But your thinking is not unreasonable either, and doing what you describe is very common. There are many valid approaches that will do what you want without the complexity of trying to deal with a hardware timer. One of the easiest is probably to just wrap the program in a shell script and use the timeout command to limit how long it is allowed to execute before it is terminated.
Assuming the script is located at /home/user/my_script.py, and you want to run it every 10 minutes, allowing it 2 minutes before it is killed, this would work:
create a wrapper shell script:
#!/usr/bin/env bash
if ! timeout 120s python /home/user/my_script.py; then
msg="$(date) - script exceeded timeout and was killed"
else
msg="$(date) - script ran successfully"
fi
echo "${msg}" >> /home/user/my_script.log
put the script in a file, say at /home/user/wrapper_script.sh and run chmod 755 /home/user/wrapper_script.sh to make it executable.
schedule the script to run every 10 minutes using cron. At a shell, use crontab -e to edit the users crontab file and add a new line like this:
*/10 * * * * /home/user/wrapper_script.sh
now, every 10 minutes the wrapper will start automatically, and it will kick off the python script. It will wait 2 minutes for the script to stop normally, after which it will reach the timeout and terminate it.
Note: depending on how your python program is written, you might have to use some other options to the timeout command to specify which signal it should use to stop the program. If it is a very basic python script, it should be fine using the default.
Edit: based on the comments, you might be able to just change the command you're using to this:
xterm -T "HMS" -geometry 100x70+10+35 -hold -e sudo timeout 120s /usr/bin/python3 /home/pi/h$
Doing that won't actually schedule the script to run at any fixed interval, so it assumes you already have something in place to handle that. All this will do is make srue that the script is restricted to 120 seconds of run time before it is killed.
I want to be able to run my python script which scans for something related to cryptocurrencies 1 minute after the same script has just been complete. Is this possible? Or could I maybe set a limit before the loop repeats itself or something?
The code I have isn't something I am willing to share due to its sensitive nature. It is a trading bot.
You have a few solutions:
Use a cron job if you are on a unix like platform (you can use this for the syntax, or man cron in the terminal to learn more about it)
Create a long running python script that sleeps for one minute before executing your logic again. Something like this:
import time
while True:
# execute code here
time.sleep(60)
If you are running it on Windows platform ,
You can create a batch file to run your script in cmd using the following command:
start "" "path_to_python.exe" "path_to_python_script"
then create a task in windows task scheduler .
You can refer
https://dev.to/tharindadilshan/running-a-python-script-every-x-minutes-in-windows-10-3nm9 . It might helps.
I run a Python-based tool in terminal, and I want it to stop when the tool prints a certain message.
I want to stop the command to measure time with 'time' command, and I want to automate this measurement process to prevent stopping the function manually. It doesn't make sense when you try to measure time while trying to be fast for CTRL+C...
Until now, I have used time command1 ..... and stopped the command manually.
I expect to create a bash script that runs several times (can be done easily with the loops), stops when a certain message appears, and prints or saves the time (user+sys).
What are the best methods to set a .py file to run at one specific time in the future? Ideally, its like to do everything within a single script.
Details: I often travel for business so I built a program to automatically check me in to my flights 24 hours prior to takeoff so I can board earlier. I currently am editing my script to input my confirmation number and then setting up cron jobs to run said script at the specified time. Is there a better way to do this?
Options I know of:
• current method
• put code in the script to delay until x time. Run the script immediately after booking the flight and it would stay open until the specified time, then check me in and close. This would prevent me from shutting down my computer, though, and my machine is prone to overheating.
Ideal method: input my confirmation number & flight date, run the script, have it set up whatever cron automatically, be done with it. I want to make sure whatever method I use doesn't include keeping a script open and running in the background.
cron is best for jobs that you want to repeat periodically. For one-time jobs, use at or batch.
I'm fairly competent with Python but I've never 'uploaded code' to a server before and have it run automatically.
I'm working on a project that would require some code to be running 24/7. At certain points of the day, if a criteria is met, a process is started. For example: a database may contain records of what time each user wants to receive a daily newsletter (for some subjective reason) - the code would at the right time of day send the newsletter to the correct person. But of course, all of this is running out on a Cloud server.
Any help would be appreciated - even correcting my entire formulation of the problem! If you know how to do this in any other language - please reply with your solutions!
Thanks!
Here are two approaches to this problem, both of which require shell access to the cloud server.
Write the program to handle the scheduling itself. For example, sleep and wake up every few miliseconds to perform the necessary checks. You would then transfer this file to the server using a tool like scp, login, and start it in the background using something like python myscript.py &.
Write the program to do a single run only, and use the scheduling tool cron to start it up every minute of the day.
Took a few days but I finally got a way to work this out. The most practical way to get this working is to use a VPS that runs the script. The confusing part of my code was that each user would activate the script at a different time for themselves. To do this, say at midnight, the VPS runs the python script (using scheduled tasking or something similar) and runs the script. the script would then pull times from a database and process the code at those times outlined.
Thanks for your time anyways!