Default variable details

Some of debops.cron default variables have more extensive configuration than simple strings or lists, here you can find documentation and examples for them.

cron__crontab_jobs
cron__jobs

cron__crontab_jobs 

The cron__crontab_*_jobs variables define what cron jobs will be present in the /etc/crontab configuration file. You can read more about the contents of this file in the crontab(5) manual page.

This configuration is meant for the system-wide cron configuration, application-specific cron jobs should be configured via the cron__jobs variables.

Examples

The syntax is similar to that used by the Ansible ansible.builtin.cron module.

Define a cron job which will be executed every minute:

cron__crontab_jobs:
  - name: 'run-each-minute'
    job: '/bin/true'

Run a job each day at midnight:

cron__crontab_jobs:
  - name: 'run-each-day'
    minute: '0'
    hour: '0'
    job: '/bin/true'

Alternative way to run a job each day at midnight:

cron__crontab_jobs:
  - name: 'run-each-day'
    special_time: 'daily'
    job: '/bin/true'

Run a job as the nobody user, 23 minutes every two hours, every day:

cron__crontab_jobs:
  - name: 'custom-job-schedule'
    user: 'nobody'
    special_time: '23 0-23/2 * * *'
    job: '/bin/true'

You can also check the cron__crontab_default_jobs variable to see the configuration of the hourly, daily, weekly and monthly cron job schedules.

Override daily cron job schedule to execute on a specific hour instead of the randomized one:

cron__crontab_jobs:
  - name: 'crontab-daily'
    hour: '5'

Syntax

Each list entry is a YAML dictionary that describes a cron job using specific parameters:

name

Required. A string that defines a configuration entry, not used otherwise. Configuration entries with the same name parameter are merged together in the order of appearance and can affect each other.

job

Required. The command to execute by cron for a given job.

state

Optional. If not specified or present, a given job will be included in the generated /etc/crontab file. If absent, a given job will be removed from the generated file. If ignore, the configuration entry will not be evaluated by role during execution.

minute

Optional. Execute a cron job on a specific minute. If not specified, * will be used which executes a job every minute.

hour

Optional. Execute a cron job on a specific hour. If not specified, * will be used which executes a job every hour.

day

Optional. Execute a cron job on a specific day of the month. If not specified, * will be used which executes a job every day of the month.

weekday

Optional. Execute a cron job ona specific day of the week. If not specified, * will be used which executes a job every day of the week.

special_time

Optional. Specify the job execution time using one of the built-in cron aliases:

reboot: execute a job at system boot
yearly or annually: execute a job once a year, at midnight of January 1st
monthly: execute a job once a month, at midnight of the first day of the month
weekly: execute a job once a week, at midnight each Sunday
daily or midnight: execute a job once a day, at midnight
hourly: execute a job once an hour, on the hour

Alternatively, you can specify a custom execution time as a string using this parameter, for example every March 23rd if it's a Sunday. See the crontab(5) manual page for details.

user

Optional. Specify the UNIX account which should be used to execute a given cron job. If not specified, root will be used by default.

cron__jobs 

The cron__*_jobs variables can be used to define what cron jobs should be present on the remote hosts.

The variables are YAML dictionaries or YAML lists (the data type can't be mixed in the same variable). YAML dictionary keys define the name of the cron configuration file in /etc/cron.d/ directory.

Each entry is a YAML dictionary that defines a set of one or more cron jobs using specific parameters:

file or cron_file: Name of the configuration file in the /etc/cron.d/ directory. Required when the YAML list format is used. If not specified, the dictionary key will be used as the name. Notice in order for a cron job to actually be executed, the file name must be entirely made up of letters, digits and can only contain the special signs underscore ('_') and hyphen ('-').
user: Optional. Specify the UNIX user account which will execute the job. If not specified, the job will be executed as the root account.
environment: Optional. A YAML dictionary which defines what variables should be present in a given cron job environment. Each dictionary key is the variable name, and its value will be set as that variable value.
backup: Optional, boolean. If True, the cron Ansible module will create a backup of an existing configuration file before modifying it.
job: A string that specifies the command that should be executed by cron to perform a given task.
jobs: List of cron jobs which should be defined on the remote host. Each list entry is either a string which specifies the command, or a YAML dictionary with more specific parameters. Missing parameters that are required to define a complete entry will be copied from the main YAML dictionary of a given cron__*_jobs entry.
custom_files: Optional. List of custom files which should be present on the remote host; this list can be used to install bigger scripts executed by cron jobs. Each list entry is a YAML dictionary with specific parameters. See below for the description of the parameters.

The parameters below can be specified both in main YAML dictionary, as well as in a dictionary entry on the jobs list:

disabled: Optional, boolean. If True, the cron entry in the configuration file will be commented out, rendering it disabled.
state: Optional. If not specified or present, the cron entry will be created. If absent, the cron entry will be removed. If ignore, the existing entries won't be changed and missing entries will not be created. If the state parameter is defined in the main YAML dictionary, when it's absent the entire configuration file will be removed.
name: Optional. Description of a given cron job, used as a marker by Ansible to correctly manipulate the cron entries. if not specified, it will be generated automatically to ensure that the cron jobs are idempotent.

The next set of parameters define when a given cron job should be executed, in the cron Ansible module specification format. See its documentation for more details:

special_time: Specify the special time when the job should be run, in the cron format: hourly, daily, weekly, monthly, annually, yearly, or at the reboot. This parameter cannot be used with other parameters that define the execution time.
minute: Specify the minute when the job should be run, in the cron format.
hour: Specify the hour when the job should be run, in the cron format.
day: Specify the day when the job should be run, in the cron format.
month: Specify the month when the job should be run, in the cron format.
weekday: Specify what weekdays the job should be run, in the cron format.

The parameters below are used in the custom_files list as the dictionary keys:

dest: Required. Absolute path to the destination file on the remote host.
src: Absolute path of the source file on the Ansible Controller which will be copied to the remote host. Shouldn't be used with the content parameter.
content: The contents of the specified destination file generated on the remote host. Shouldn't be used with the src parameter.
owner: Optional. Specify the UNIX account of the file owner. If not specified, root will own the file.
group: Optional. Specify the UNIX group the file belongs to. If not specified, it will belong to the root group.
mode: Optional. Specify the file permissions in octal. If not specified, they will be set as 0755.
force: Optional, boolean. If not specified or True, the role will overwrite any existing files. If False, an existing file won't be changed.

Examples

Create two tasks that execute a command every minute, in separate configuration files.

cron__jobs:

  'simple_job_1':
    job: 'touch /tmp/file1'

  'simple_job_2':
    job: 'touch /tmp/file2'

Create two tasks that execute a command every minute, in separate configuration files, as a list:

cron__jobs:

  - file: 'simple_job_1'
    job: 'touch /tmp/file1'

  - file: 'simple_job_2'
    job: 'touch /tmp/file2'

Create two tasks that execute a command every minute, in one configuration file:

cron__jobs:
  'two_tasks':
    jobs:

      - 'touch /tmp/file1'

      - 'touch /tmp/file2'

Create a task that executes a command every minute, in the crontab of the user jessie:

cron__jobs:
  'user_cron':
    cron_file: '{{ omit }}'
    user: 'jessie'
    jobs:

      - 'touch /tmp/file1'

Create two tasks in the same file with custom descriptions:

cron__jobs:
  'two_tasks_one_disabled':
    jobs:

      - name: 'This task is done first'
        job: 'touch /tmp/file1'

      - name: 'This task is disabled'
        job: 'touch /tmp/file2'
        disabled: True

Execute a custom script every week, as the backup user:

cron__jobs:

  'execute-script':
    user: 'backup'
    special_time: 'weekly'
    job: '/usr/local/lib/weekly-job'

    custom_files:

      - dest: '/usr/local/lib/weekly-job'
        content: |
          #!/bin/bash
          touch /tmp/weekly-result

Set environment variables for one job only:

cron__jobs:

  'script-without-mail':
    special_time: 'hourly'
    job: '/usr/local/lib/hourly-job'
    environment:
      MAILTO: ''
      ENVIRONMENT: 'production'
      PATH: '/usr/local/sbin:$PATH'

Default variable details

cron__crontab_jobs

Examples

Syntax

cron__jobs

Examples

cron__crontab_jobs 

cron__jobs 