Subject: Re: bug#36430: mcron would benefit from a better way to test jobs

From: Ludovic Courtès <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 07 Jul 2019 16:24:26 +0200

Hi Robert,

Robert Vollmert <[email-masked]> skribis:

> Defined a mcron job in config.scm scheduled to run once a day,
> with a scheme expression. How do I test this?
>
> herd schedule mcron lists the job as merely a “Lambda expression”.
> I learned how to give it a descriptive name, but still there’s
> no script linked that I can run by hand.

Commit 89fdd9ee0cc8817283449b33a8c1a2604c575c7e changes the rottlog job
in a simple way so we see an actual command rather than “Lambda
expression”.  I would recommend using this style to improve
transparency.

> One major improvement would be to have:
>
> 1. `herd schedule mcron` lists jobs with some kind of id
> 2. `herd execute mcron <id>` runs the specific mcron job
>
> Or perhaps, any mcron job could be turned into a simple argument-less
> guile or shell script that’s shown in the schedule listing?

The commit I’m referring to above does exactly that.

Perhaps as a first step we could recommend this style more prominently
in the manual?

Further improvements should probably go into mcron itself.  It’s a
rather small and simple code base, so if you were looking for a
rewarding hacking session for the week-end, it’s probably a good
candidate.  ;-)

Thanks,
Ludo’.