Add cron for utilizing server-sync

[SHU-red]

Seems like cron is not installed on your arch-linux installation

Adding something like (not knowing arch very well)

pacman -Suy cronie
systemctl enable --now cronie.service

could solve it i think?

So then i could add cron-jobs for executing task sync and editing crontab -e and mount something like:

<mount>:/etc/crontabs/

Feel free to add this to your example docker compose?!

[tmahmood]

Yes, by default, cronie is not installed in Arch Linux. Now added, Let me know if it works properly for you.

[SHU-red]

Thank you very much

I dont know what im doing wrong, "thinking" i have pulled the newest version

[task@a8418da21b1e ~]$ systemctl status cron
System has not been booted with systemd as init system (PID 1). Can't operate.
Failed to connect to system scope bus via local transport: Host is down
[task@a8418da21b1e ~]$ systemctl status cronie
System has not been booted with systemd as init system (PID 1). Can't operate.
Failed to connect to system scope bus via local transport: Host is down
[task@a8418da21b1e ~]$ crontab -e
bash: crontab: command not found
[task@a8418da21b1e ~]$ 

Saw your commits 30e7bd2 and b619594

Re-pulled ghcr.io/tmahmood/taskwarrior-web:main

[SHU-red]

Having a 2nd look at the current Dockerfile, i may think you have to move cronie down to the last build stage where installations are done that persist in the final image

The stages before are only "temporary" to build the app (i think)

The target section could be the following one:

taskwarrior-web/Dockerfile

Lines 23 to 49 in b619594

	# Install
	RUN echo "NoExtract = !usr/share/doc/timew/*" >> /etc/pacman.conf \
	&& echo "NoExtract = !usr/share/doc/task/*" >> /etc/pacman.conf \
	&& pacman -Suy --needed --noconfirm git python \
	&& pacman -S --noconfirm task timew \
	&& pacman -S --noconfirm python-pip \
	&& useradd -m -d /app task && passwd -d task \
	&& chown -R task:task /app && chmod -R 775 /app \
	&& mkdir -p /app/bin \
	&& mkdir -p /app/taskdata \
	&& mkdir -p /app/.task/hooks \
	&& mkdir -p /app/.timewarrior/data/ \
	&& cp /usr/share/doc/timew/ext/on-modify.timewarrior /app/.task/hooks/on-modify.timewarrior \
	&& ( [[ $TASK_ADDON_BUGWARRIOR != "true" ]] || python3 -m pip install --break-system-packages bugwarrior[$TASK_ADDON_BUGWARRIOR_FEATURES]@git+https://github.com/GothenburgBitFactory/bugwarrior.git ) \
	# cleanup
	&& pacman --noconfirm -R git python-pip \
	&& echo "delete orphaned" \
	&& pacman --noconfirm -Qdtq | pacman --noconfirm -Rs - \
	&& echo "clear cache" \
	&& pacman --noconfirm -Sc \
	&& echo "clean folders" \
	&& rm -Rf /var/cache \
	&& rm -Rf /var/log \
	&& rm -Rf /var/db \
	&& rm -Rf /var/lib \
	&& rm -Rf /usr/include \
	&& rm -Rf /run

[tmahmood]

Ahh, thank you, you are right, I really should spend some more time learning docker

Sorry, not being able to check this thoroughly due to time constraints. Hopefully this time I got it right.

[SHU-red]

Absolutely no prob
Im very glad you are taking time for this

Love your keyboard-first approach and the lean UI

Slowly trying to integrate it into my environment using a syncchampion server, using cron is a step forward for me

Thank you and im appreciating your awesome work

[tmahmood]

Thank you! Really appreciate it. :-)

I am really glad if this is helping you in way

[SHU-red]

Tested your newest release:

sh-5.2$ crontab -e
no crontab for task - using an empty one
/bin/sh: line 1: /usr/bin/vi: No such file or directory
crontab: "/usr/bin/vi" exited with status 127

I guess

• cronie is now installed
• the default editor is vi
• vi is not installed

So sorry to annoy you again
I think there are two ways:

1. install vi
   OR
2. install/use another default editor and change $EDITOR variable
   My personal preferation would be just to install vi because i like it

But if nano is better for people im also fine with it

[tmahmood]

Interesting, I never noticed Arch do not include VI in default installation! Hah. But I can never live without vim, so it's always installed at the very beginning.

Added VI in the DockerFile.

And no worries! Happy to help!

[SHU-red]

Thank you! Now i could

2. add the volume mount to my docker-compose: <mystuff>/taskwarrior-web_cron:/var/spool/cron/
3. use crontab -e to add e.g. */3 * * * * task sync to sync every 3 minutes (if i did not do a mistake`

But it seems to not work because i do not get an updated version

As i try to use systemctl status cronie i get:

[task@c27d114a74f4 ~]$ systemctl status cronie
System has not been booted with systemd as init system (PID 1). Can't operate.
Failed to connect to system scope bus via local transport: Host is down

I am not sure if systemctl is needed for cron/cronie to run but having a look at this source, seems to feel like systemctl is needed am i right?

After installation, the daemon will not be enabled by default. The installed package likely provides a service, which can be controlled by systemctl. For example, cronie uses cronie.service.

[SHU-red]

Did a bit of research. Instead of taking the effort to add systemd, cron can also be ran by using crond daemon.

This could be added to your start.sh as something like:

crond -n -s

Testing this i got an error like

crond: can't open or create /var/run/crond.pid: No such file or directory

Guessing this could be caused by crond not having root permissions or something

Sorry for the inconvenience. Its your decision if you want to put time/effort into this

Im not sure if im qualified enough and can spend the time to create a PR myself

[tmahmood]

Hey, sorry, I am a bit packed. Will take a look once I am free.

[SHU-red]

No hurry
I even could try to make a PR
But spending time is also not easy for me

[tmahmood]

I understand, and thank you for taking your time, PR would be welcome. When I can make the change and check (there are few other things broken, that needs fixing too) I will do it myself.

[monofox]

In my setup, i have to execute cron jobs as well (i've bugwarrior running). But i solved it differently, as i do not want to let some cronjobs running within the same docker container (i want easily be able to define further and to define which interval, etc.)

For example, my docker-compose.yml:

services:
  web:
    image: ghcr.io/tmahmood/taskwarrior-web:main
    ports:
      - "127.0.0.1:8090:3000"
    volumes:
      - ./data/env:/app/.env
      - ./data/task:/app/taskdata
      - ./data/taskrc:/app/.taskrc
      - ./data/timewarrior:/app/.timewarrior
      - ./data/bugwarrior/bugwarriorrc:/app/.config/bugwarrior/bugwarriorrc
    environment:
      ...
    labels:
      com.centurylinklabs.watchtower.enable: "true"
      ofelia.enabled: "true"
      ofelia.job-exec.bugwarrior_runner.schedule: "@every 1h"
      ofelia.job-exec.bugwarrior_runner.command: "/bin/bash -c \"bugwarrior pull\""
      ofelia.job-exec.timewjira_runner.schedule: "@every 1h"
      ofelia.job-exec.timewjira_runner.command: "/bin/bash -c \"timew jirapush\""
    restart: always

  ofelia:
    image: mcuadros/ofelia:latest
    restart: always
    command: daemon --docker -f label=com.docker.compose.project=${COMPOSE_PROJECT_NAME}
    environment:
      - TZ=${TZ}
      - COMPOSE_PROJECT_NAME=${COMPOSE_PROJECT_NAME}
    depends_on:
      - web
    labels:
      ofelia.enabled: "true"
      com.centurylinklabs.watchtower.enable: "true"
    security_opt:
      - label=disable
    volumes:
      - /var/run/docker.sock:/var/run/docker.sock:ro

I'm running bugwarrior pull and timew jirapush each of them as a cronjob every hour with the help of ofelia.

Wouldn't be this the better approach?

[SHU-red]

Just to re-update here
Im still on it (if i find time) and my current favourite solution is to just use watch command

The great thing is:

• watch seems to already be installed
• one-line command like watch -n 60 task sync should do its job

The thing is: Using my docker-compose file below for some reason seems to not fire the command since its not updating my tasks in the background. Using watch -n 60 task sync manually inside of the containers console works ... so there must be something i oversee at the moment

  taskwarrior-web:
    container_name: taskwarrior-web
    image: ghcr.io/tmahmood/taskwarrior-web:main
    network_mode: bridge
    restart: unless-stopped
    command: bash -c "watch -n 60 task sync"
    volumes:
      - /mnt/tank/dvol/taskwarrior-web_data:/app/taskdata
      - /mnt/tank/dvol/taskwarrior-web_config/.taskrc:/app/.taskrc
      - /mnt/tank/dvol/taskwarrior-web_cron:/var/spool/cron/
    ports:
      - 3000:3000