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Zargon

Cron With Rails on Openshift

Openshift has a cron cartridge that’s very easy to install and configure. You simply install the cron cartridge:

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rhc-ctl-app -a $appname -e add-cron-1.4

And populate the directory tree in your app’s git repository:

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openshift
├── cron
│   ├── daily
│   │   └── my_script.rb
│   ├── hourly
│   ├── minutely
│   ├── monthly
│   ├── README.cron
│   └── weekly
│       ├── chrono.dat
│       ├── chronograph
│       ├── jobs.allow
│       ├── jobs.deny
│       └── README

The trick is that unlike Heroku, the Openshift cron system is basically just like regular linux cron. They do not execute (by default) in your application’s environment. Thankfully, it’s very easy to set up your scripts to run this way.

ruby cron example
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#!/usr/bin/env ruby
# this script will default to DEVELOPMENT if you dont force it
ENV['RAILS_ENV'] ||= 'production'

require File.expand_path("./config/environment", ENV['OPENSHIFT_REPO_DIR'])

Rails.logger.debug 'daily cron job!'
MyHelper.do_something_daily('internet')

It should be pretty obvious where to put your script files based on when you want them to run!