GNU bug report logs - #36430
mcron would benefit from a better way to test jobs

Previous Next

Full log

View this message in rfc822 format

From: Robert Vollmert <rob <at> vllmrt.net>
To: Ludovic Courtès <ludo <at> gnu.org>
Cc: 36430 <at> debbugs.gnu.org
Subject: bug#36430: mcron would benefit from a better way to test jobs
Date: Mon, 8 Jul 2019 09:18:32 +0200

> On 7. Jul 2019, at 16:24, Ludovic Courtès <ludo <at> gnu.org> wrote:
> 
> Hi Robert,
> 
> Robert Vollmert <rob <at> vllmrt.net> 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.

I understand that passing an executable works better. But that also
loses the feature of allowing to write a script in place advertised by
the lambda variant.

I find that kind of “feature that doesn’t actually work” to be quite
painful.

A way to get the best of both worlds (within guix) would be to use
program-file / gexp, so maybe that’s what should be advertised in the
guix manual?


>> 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?

I’ll see if I can get the gexp variant to work, and would provide
a manual patch if successful.

> 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.  ;-)

At this stage, there’s just too many small hacking sessions required
all over the place :). I’ll stick with filing bug reports for the
clear pain points if that’s ok?

Robert

Previous Next

GNU bug tracking system
Copyright (C) 1999 Darren O. Benham, 1997,2003 nCipher Corporation Ltd, 1994-97 Ian Jackson.