================ Yet Another Cron

A modern Cron replacement that is Docker-friendly

• Free software: MIT license

Features

• "Crontab" is in YAML format;

• Builtin sending of Sentry and Mail outputs when cron jobs fail;

• Flexible configuration: you decide how to determine if a cron job fails or not;

• Designed for running in Docker, Kubernetes, or 12 factor environments:

  • Runs in the foreground;
  • Logs everything to stdout/stderr [1]_;

• Option to automatically retry failing cron jobs, with exponential backoff;

• Optional HTTP REST API, to fetch status and start jobs on demand;

• Arbitrary timezone support;

.. [1] Whereas vixie cron only logs to syslog, requiring a syslog daemon to be running in the background or else you don't get logs!

Status

The project is in beta stage: essential features are complete, and the focus is finding and fixing bugs before the first stable release.

Installation

Install using pip +++++++++++++++++

yacron requires Python >= 3.6 (for systems with older Python, use the binary instead). It is advisable to install it in a Python virtual environment, for example:

.. code-block:: shell

python3 -m venv yacronenv
. yacronenv/bin/activate
pip install yacron

Install using pipx ++++++++++++++++++

pipx_ automates creating a virtualenv and installing a python program in the newly created virtualenv. It is as simple as:

.. code-block:: shell

pipx install yacron

.. _pipx: https://github.com/pipxproject/pipx

Install using binary ++++++++++++++++++++

Alternatively, a self-contained binary can be downloaded from github: https://github.com/gjcarneiro/yacron/releases. This binary should work on any Linux 64-bit system post glibc 2.23 (e.g. Ubuntu:16.04). Python is not required on the target system (it is embedded in the executable).

Usage

Configuration is in YAML format. To start yacron, give it a configuration file or directory path as the -c argument. For example::

yacron -c /tmp/my-crontab.yaml

This starts yacron (always in the foreground!), reading /tmp/my-crontab.yaml as configuration file. If the path is a directory, any *.yaml or *.yml files inside this directory are taken as configuration files.

Configuration basics ++++++++++++++++++++

This configuration runs a command every 5 minutes:

.. code-block:: yaml

jobs:
  - name: test-01
    command: echo "foobar"
    shell: /bin/bash
    schedule: "*/5 * * * *"

The command can be a string or a list of strings. If command is a string, yacron runs it through a shell, which is /bin/bash in the above example, but is /bin/sh by default.

If the command is a list of strings, the command is executed directly, without a shell. The ARGV of the command to execute is extracted directly from the configuration:

.. code-block:: yaml

jobs:
  - name: test-01
    command:
      - echo
      - foobar
    schedule: "*/5 * * * *"

The schedule option can be a string in a crontab format specified by https://github.com/josiahcarlson/parse-crontab (this module is used by yacron). Additionally @reboot can be included , which will only run the job when yacron is initially executed. Further schedule can be an object with properties. The following configuration runs a command every 5 minutes, but only on the specific date 2017-07-19, and doesn't run it in any other date:

.. code-block:: yaml

jobs:
  - name: test-01
    command: echo "foobar"
    schedule:
      minute: "*/5"
      dayOfMonth: 19
      month: 7
      year: 2017
      dayOfWeek: "*"

Important: by default all time is interpreted to be in UTC, but you can request to use local time instead. For instance, the cron job below runs every day at 19h27 local time because of the utc: false option:

.. code-block:: yaml

jobs:

• name: test-01 command: echo "hello" schedule: "27 19 *" utc: false captureStdout: true

Since Yacron version 0.11, you can also request that the schedule be interpreted in an arbitrary timezone, using the timezone attribute:

.. code-block:: yaml

jobs:

• name: test-01 command: echo "hello" schedule: "27 19 *" timezone: America/Los_Angeles captureStdout: true

You can ask for environment variables to be defined for command execution:

.. code-block:: yaml

jobs:
  - name: test-01
    command: echo "foobar"
    shell: /bin/bash
    schedule: "*/5 * * * *"
    environment:
      - key: PATH
        value: /bin:/usr/bin

You can also provide an environment file to define environments for command execution:

.. code-block:: yaml

jobs:
  - name: test-01
    command: echo "foobar"
    shell: /bin/bash
    schedule: "*/5 * * * *"
    env_file: .env

The env file must be a list of KEY=VALUE pairs. Empty lines and lines starting with # will be ignored.

Variables declared in the environment option will override those found in the env_file.

Specifying defaults +++++++++++++++++++

There can be a special defaults section in the config. Any attributes defined in this section provide default values for cron jobs to inherit. Although cron jobs can still override the defaults, as needed:

.. code-block:: yaml

defaults:
    environment:
      - key: PATH
        value: /bin:/usr/bin
    shell: /bin/bash
    utc: false
jobs:
  - name: test-01
    command: echo "foobar"  # runs with /bin/bash as shell
    schedule: "*/5 * * * *"
  - name: test-02  # runs with /bin/sh as shell
    command: echo "zbr"
    shell: /bin/sh
    schedule: "*/5 * * * *"

Note: if the configuration option is a directory and there are multiple configuration files in that directory, then the defaults section in each configuration file provides default options only for cron jobs inside that same file; the defaults have no effect beyond any individual YAML file.

Reporting +++++++++

Yacron has builtin support for reporting jobs failure (more on that below) by email, Sentry and shell command (additional reporting methods might be added in the future):

.. code-block:: yaml

• name: test-01 command: | echo "hello" 1>&2 sleep 1 exit 10 schedule: minute: "*/2" captureStderr: true onFailure: report: sentry: dsn: value: example

  Alternatively:

      # fromFile: /etc/secrets/my-secret-dsn
      # fromEnvVar: SENTRY_DSN
    fingerprint:  # optional, since yacron 0.6
      - yacron
      - "{{ environment.HOSTNAME }}"
      - "{{ name }}"
    extra:
      foo: bar
      zbr: 123
    level: warning
    environment: production
  mail:
    from: example@foo.com
    to: example@bar.com
    smtpHost: 127.0.0.1
    # optional fields:
    username: "username1"  # set username and password to enable login
    password:
      value: example
      # Alternatively:
      # fromFile: /etc/secrets/my-secret-password
      # fromEnvVar: MAIL_PASSWORD
    tls: false  # set to true to enable TLS
    starttls: false  # set to true to enable StartTLS
  shell:
    shell: /bin/bash
    command: ...

Here, the onFailure object indicates that what to do when a job failure is detected. In this case we ask for it to be reported both to sentry and by sending an email.

The captureStderr: true part instructs yacron to capture output from the the program's standard error, so that it can be included in the report. We could also turn on standard output capturing via the captureStdout: true option. By default, yacron captures only standard error. If a cron job's standard error or standard output capturing is not enabled, these streams will simply write to the same standard output and standard error as yacron itself.

Both stdout and stderr stream lines are by default prefixed with [{job_name} {stream_name}], i.e. [test-01 stdout], if for any reason you need to change this, provide the option streamPrefix (new in version 0.16) with your own custom string.

.. code-block:: yaml

• name: test-01 command: echo "hello world" schedule: minute: "*/2" captureStdout: true streamPrefix: "[{job_name} job]"

In some cases, for instance when you're logging JSON objects you might want to completely get rid of the prefix altogether:

.. code-block:: yaml

• name: test-01 command: echo "hello world" schedule: minute: "*/2" captureStdout: true streamPrefix: ""

It is possible also to report job success, as well as failure, via the onSuccess option.

.. code-block:: yaml

• name: test-01 command: echo "hello world" schedule: minute: "*/2" captureStdout: true onSuccess: report: mail: from: example@foo.com to: example@bar.com smtpHost: 127.0.0.1

Since yacron 0.5, it is possible to customise the format of the report. For mail reporting, the option subject indicates what is the subject of the email, while body formats the email body. For Sentry reporting, there is only body. In all cases, the values of those options are strings that are processed by the jinja2_ templating engine. The following variables are available in templating:

• name(str): name of the cron job
• success(bool): whether or not the cron job succeeded
• stdout(str): standard output of the process
• stderr(str): standard error of the process
• exit_code(int): process exit code
• command(str): cron job command
• shell(str): cron job shell
• environment(dict): subprocess environment variables

.. _jinja2: http://jinja.pocoo.org/

Example:

.. code-block:: yaml

• name: test-01 command: | echo "hello" 1>&2 sleep 1 exit 10 schedule: minute: "*/2" captureStderr: true onFailure: report: mail: from: example@foo.com to: example@bar.com smtpHost: 127.0.0.1 subject: Cron job '{{name}}' {% if success %}completed{% else %}failed{% endif %} body: | {{stderr}} (exit code: {{exit_code}})

The shell reporter (since yacron 0.13) executes a user given shell command in the specified shell. It passes all environment variables from the python executable and specifies some additional ones to inform about the state of the job:

• YACRON_FAIL_REASON (str)
• YACRON_FAILED ("1" or "0")
• YACRON_JOB_NAME (str)
• YACRON_JOB_COMMAND (str)
• YACRON_JOB_SCHEDULE (str)
• YACRON_RETCODE (str)
• YACRON_STDERR (str)
• YACRON_STDOUT (str)

A simple example configuration:

.. code-block:: yaml

• name: test-01 command: echo "foobar" && exit 123 shell: /bin/bash schedule: " *" onFailure: report: shell: shell: /bin/bash command: echo "Error code $YACRON_RETCODE"

Since yacron 0.15, it is possible to send emails formatted as html, by adding the html: true property. For example, here the standard output of a shell command is captured and interpreted as html and placed in the email message\:

.. code-block:: yaml

• name: test-01 command: echo "hello world" schedule: "@reboot" captureStdout: true onSuccess: report: mail: from: example@foo.com to: example@bar.com, zzz@sleep.com html: true smtpHost: 127.0.0.1 smtpPort: 1025 subject: This is a cron job with html body

Metrics +++++++++

Yacron has builtin support for writing job metrics to Statsd_:

.. _Statsd: https://github.com/etsy/statsd

.. code-block:: yaml

jobs:
  - name: test01
    command: echo "hello"
    schedule: "* * * * *"
    statsd:
      host: my-statsd.example.com
      port: 8125
      prefix: my.cron.jobs.prefix.test01

With this config Yacron will write the following metrics over UDP to the Statsd listening on my-statsd.example.com:8125:

.. code-block::

my.cron.jobs.prefix.test01.start:1|g # this one is sent when the job starts my.cron.jobs.prefix.test01.stop:1|g # the rest are sent when the job stops my.cron.jobs.prefix.test01.success:1|g my.cron.jobs.prefix.test01.duration:3|ms|@0.1

Handling failure ++++++++++++++++

By default, yacron considers that a job has failed if either the process returns a non-zero code or if it generates output to standard error (and standard error capturing is enabled, of course).

You can instruct yacron how to determine if a job has failed or not via the failsWhen option:

.. code-block:: yaml

failsWhen: producesStdout: false producesStderr: true nonzeroReturn: true always: false

producesStdout If true, any captured standard output causes yacron to consider the job as failed. This is false by default.

producesStderr If true, any captured standard error causes yacron to consider the job as failed. This is true by default.

nonzeroReturn If true, if the job process returns a code other than zero causes yacron to consider the job as failed. This is true by default.

always If true, if the job process exits that causes yacron to consider the job as failed. This is false by default.

It is possible to instruct yacron to retry failing cron jobs by adding a retry option inside onFailure:

.. code-block:: yaml

• name: test-01 command: | echo "hello" 1>&2 sleep 1 exit 10 schedule: minute: "*/10" captureStderr: true onFailure: report: mail: from: example@foo.com to: example@bar.com smtpHost: 127.0.0.1 retry: maximumRetries: 10 initialDelay: 1 maximumDelay: 30 backoffMultiplier: 2

The above settings tell yacron to retry the job up to 10 times, with the delay between retries defined by an exponential backoff process: initially 1 second, doubling for every retry up to a maximum of 30 seconds. A value of -1 for maximumRetries will mean yacron will keep retrying forever, this is mostly useful with a schedule of "@reboot" to restart a long running process when it has failed.

If the cron job is expected to fail sometimes, you may wish to report only in the case the cron job ultimately fails after all retries and we give up on it. For that situation, you can use the onPermanentFailure option:

.. code-block:: yaml

• name: test-01 command: | echo "hello" 1>&2 sleep 1 exit 10 schedule: minute: "*/10" captureStderr: true onFailure: retry: maximumRetries: 10 initialDelay: 1 maximumDelay: 30 backoffMultiplier: 2 onPermanentFailure: report: mail: from: example@foo.com to: example@bar.com smtpHost: 127.0.0.1

Concurrency +++++++++++ Sometimes it may happen that a cron job takes so long to execute that when the moment its next scheduled execution is reached a previous instance may still be running. How yacron handles this situation is controlled by the option concurrencyPolicy, which takes one of the following values:

Allow allows concurrently running jobs (default) Forbid forbids concurrent runs, skipping next run if previous hasn’t finished yet Replace cancels currently running job and replaces it with a new one

Execution timeout +++++++++++++++++

(new in version 0.4)

If you have a cron job that may possibly hang sometimes, you can instruct yacron to terminate the process after N seconds if it's still running by then, via the executionTimeout option. For example, the following cron job takes 2 seconds to complete, yacron will terminate it after 1 second:

.. code-block:: yaml

• name: test-03 command: | echo "starting..." sleep 2 echo "all done." schedule: minute: "*" captureStderr: true executionTimeout: 1 # in seconds

When terminating a job, it is always a good idea to give that job process some time to terminate properly. For example, it may have opened a file, and even if you tell it to shutdown, the process may need a few seconds to flush buffers and avoid losing data.

On the other hand, there are times when programs are buggy and simply get stuck, refusing to terminate nicely no matter what. For this reason, yacron always checks if a process exited some time after being asked to do so. If it hasn't, it tries to forcefully kill the process. The option killTimeout option indicates how many seconds to wait for the process to gracefully terminate before killing it more forcefully. In Unix systems, we first send a SIGTERM, but if the process doesn't exit after killTimeout seconds (30 by default) then we send SIGKILL. For example, this cron job ignores SIGTERM, and so yacron will send it a SIGKILL after half a second:

.. code-block:: yaml

• name: test-03 command: | trap "echo '(ignoring SIGTERM)'" TERM echo "starting..." sleep 10 echo "all done." schedule: minute: "*" captureStderr: true executionTimeout: 1 killTimeout: 0.5

Change to another user/group ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

(new in version 0.11)

You can request that Yacron change to another user and/or group for a specific cron job. The field user indicates the user (uid or userame) under which the subprocess must be executed. The field group (gid or group name) indicates the group id. If only user is given, the group defaults to the main group of that user. Example:

.. code-block:: yaml

• name: test-03 command: id schedule: minute: "*" captureStderr: true user: www-data

Naturally, yacron must be running as root in order to have permissions to change to another user.

Remote web/HTTP interface +++++++++++++++++++++++++

(new in version 0.10)

If you wish to remotely control yacron, you can optionally enable an HTTP REST interface, with the following configuration (example):

.. code-block:: yaml

web: listen:

• http://127.0.0.1:8080
• unix:///tmp/yacron.sock

Now you have the following options to control it (using HTTPie as example):

Get the version of yacron: ##########################

.. code-block:: shell

$ http get http://127.0.0.1:8080/version HTTP/1.1 200 OK Content-Length: 22 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8 Date: Sun, 03 Nov 2019 19:48:15 GMT Server: Python/3.7 aiohttp/3.6.2

0.10.0b3.dev7+g45bc4ce

Get the status of cron jobs: ############################

.. code-block:: shell

$ http get http://127.0.0.1:8080/status HTTP/1.1 200 OK Content-Length: 104 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8 Date: Sun, 03 Nov 2019 19:44:45 GMT Server: Python/3.7 aiohttp/3.6.2

test-01: scheduled (in 14 seconds) test-02: scheduled (in 74 seconds) test-03: scheduled (in 14 seconds)

You may also get status info in json format:

.. code-block:: shell

$ http get http://127.0.0.1:8080/status Accept:application/json HTTP/1.1 200 OK Content-Length: 206 Content-Type: application/json; charset=utf-8 Date: Sun, 03 Nov 2019 19:45:53 GMT Server: Python/3.7 aiohttp/3.6.2

[ { "job": "test-01", "scheduled_in": 6.16588, "status": "scheduled" }, { "job": "test-02", "scheduled_in": 6.165787, "status": "scheduled" }, { "job": "test-03", "scheduled_in": 6.165757, "status": "scheduled" } ]

Start a job right now: ######################

Sometimes it's useful to start a cron job right now, even if it's not scheduled to run yet, for example for testing:

.. code-block:: shell

$ http post http://127.0.0.1:8080/jobs/test-02/start HTTP/1.1 200 OK Content-Length: 0 Content-Type: application/octet-stream Date: Sun, 03 Nov 2019 19:50:20 GMT Server: Python/3.7 aiohttp/3.6.2

Includes ++++++++

(new in version 0.13)

You may have a use case where it's convenient to have multiple config files, and choose at runtime which one to use. In that case, it might be useful if you can put common definitions (such as defaults for reporting, shell, etc.) in a separate file, that is included by the other files.

To support this use case, it is possible to ask one config file to include another one, via the include directive. It takes a list of file names: those files will be parsed as configuration and merged in with this file.

Example, your main config file could be:

.. code-block:: yaml

include:

• _inc.yaml

  jobs:

• name: my job ...

And your included _inc.yaml file could contain some useful defaults:

.. code-block:: yaml

defaults: shell: /bin/bash onPermanentFailure: report: sentry: ...

Custom logging ++++++++++++++

It's possible to provide a custom logging configuration, via the logging configuration section. For example, the following configuration displays log lines with an embedded timestamp for each message.

.. code-block:: yaml

logging:
  # In the format of:
  # https://docs.python.org/3/library/logging.config.html#dictionary-schema-details
  version: 1
  disable_existing_loggers: false
  formatters:
    simple:
      format: '%(asctime)s [%(processName)s/%(threadName)s] %(levelname)s (%(name)s): %(message)s'
      datefmt: '%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S'
  handlers:
    console:
      class: logging.StreamHandler
      level: DEBUG
      formatter: simple
      stream: ext://sys.stdout
  root:
    level: INFO
    handlers:
      - console

Obscure configuration options +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

enabled: true|false (default true) ##################################

(new in yacron 0.18)

It is possible to disable a specific cron job by adding a enabled: false option. Jobs with enabled: false will simply be skipped, as if they aren't there, apart from validating the configuration.

.. code-block:: yaml

jobs:
  - name: test-01
    enabled: false  # this cron job will not run until you change this to `true`
    command: echo "foobar"
    shell: /bin/bash
    schedule: "* * * * *"