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Cronjobs Setup#

Many tasks in i-doit can be automated with help of the CLI tool controller. We use it to maintain the IT documentation on a regular basis.

The setup of cronjobs is optional. However, we definitely recommend using this option, at best directly after the IT documentation.

Cronjobs setup - yes or no?

The setup of cronjobs is optional. However, we definitely recommend using this option, at best directly after the installation.

Simplify Access of the Controller#

To simplify the process to access the controller, you can use a simple bash script:

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sudo nano /usr/local/bin/idoit

The script gets the following contents which have to be adapted to your own installation:

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#!/bin/bash

##
## i-doit console
##

##
## Copyright (C) 2017-18 synetics GmbH, <https://i-doit.com/>
##
## This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify
## it under the terms of the GNU Affero General Public License as published by
## the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or
## (at your option) any later version.
##
## This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
## but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
## MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
## GNU Affero General Public License for more details.
##
## You should have received a copy of the GNU Affero General Public License
## along with this program. If not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.
##

set -euo pipefail

##
## Configuration
##

INSTANCE_PATH="/var/www/html/i-doit"
APACHE_USER="www-data"
ARGS="$*"

##--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

function execute {
    local prefix=""
    local console="php console.php $ARGS"

    test "$(whoami)" != "$APACHE_USER" && prefix="sudo -u $APACHE_USER "

    eval "${prefix}${console}" || abort "i-doit console exited with non-zero status"
}

function setup {
    cd "$INSTANCE_PATH" || abort "No i-doit instance found under '${INSTANCE_PATH}'"
}

function finish {
    exit 0
}

function abort {
    echo -e "$1"  1>&2
    echo "Operation failed. Please check what is wrong and try again." 1>&2
    exit 1
}

function log {
    echo -e "$1"
}

##--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

if [[ "${BASH_SOURCE[0]}" = "$0" ]]; then
    setup && execute && finish
fi

Afterwards, the execution of the script is enabled: 

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sudo chmod +x /usr/local/bin/idoit

sudo

The script automatically obtains the right permissions through the use of sudo. The currently logged-in user needs the permission to use the sudo command. Under Debian GNU/Linux 9 add the user to the sudo group. This requires root rights:

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usermod -aG sudo "$(whoami)"

The option Defaults targetpw, which prevents this mechanism, is set under SLES. Therefore you have to comment out this option in the /etc/sudoers file.

From now on, every user can use it:

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idoit COMMAND [OPTIONEN]

Create Essential Jobs#

In the next step we create another script which we can call up both manually and automatically:

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sudo nano /usr/local/bin/idoit-jobs

This script gets the following contents:

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#!/bin/bash

##
## i-doit jobs
##

##
## Copyright (C) 2017-18 synetics GmbH, <https://i-doit.com/>
##
## This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify
## it under the terms of the GNU Affero General Public License as published by
## the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or
## (at your option) any later version.
##
## This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
## but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
## MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
## GNU Affero General Public License for more details.
##
## You should have received a copy of the GNU Affero General Public License
## along with this program. If not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.
##

set -euo pipefail
IFS=$'\n\t'

##
## Configuration
##

CONSOLE_BIN="/usr/local/bin/idoit"
INSTANCE_PATH="/var/www/html/i-doit"
APACHE_USER="www-data"
IDOIT_USERNAME="admin"
IDOIT_PASSWORD="admin"
TENANT_ID="1"

##--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

function execute {
    local prefix=""
    local suffix="--user $IDOIT_USERNAME --password $IDOIT_PASSWORD --tenantId $TENANT_ID"

    test "$(whoami)" != "$APACHE_USER" && prefix="sudo -u $APACHE_USER "

    log "Archive i-doit logbook"
    eval "${prefix}${CONSOLE_BIN} logbook-archive $suffix" || \
        abort "Command 'logbook-archive' failed"
    log ""

    log "Cleanup i-doit rights"
    eval "${prefix}${CONSOLE_BIN} auth-cleanup $suffix" || \
        abort "Command 'auth-cleanup' failed"
    log ""

    log "Purge unfinished objects"
    eval "${prefix}${CONSOLE_BIN} system-objectcleanup --objectStatus 1 $suffix" || \
        abort "Command 'system-objectcleanup' failed"
    log ""

    log "Re-create search index"
    eval "${prefix}${CONSOLE_BIN} search-index $suffix" || \
        abort "Command 'search-index' failed"

    log "Send notifications"
    eval "${prefix}${CONSOLE_BIN} notifications-send $suffix" || \
        abort "Command 'notifications-send' failed"

    log "Clear caches"
    eval "${prefix}rm -rf ${INSTANCE_PATH}/temp/*" || \
        abort "Unable to clear caches"

    log "Clear updates"
    eval "${prefix}rm -rf ${INSTANCE_PATH}/updates/versions/*" || \
        abort "Unable to clear updates"
}

function setup {
    test -x "$CONSOLE_BIN" || \
        abort "Script '${CONSOLE_BIN}' not found"

    test -d "$INSTANCE_PATH" || \
        abort "No i-doit instance found under '${INSTANCE_PATH}'"
}

function log {
    echo -e "$1"
}

function finish {
    log "Done. Have fun :-)"
    exit 0
}

function abort {
    echo -e "$1"  1>&2
    echo "Operation failed. Please check what is wrong and try again." 1>&2
    exit 1
}

##--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

if [[ "${BASH_SOURCE[0]}" = "$0" ]]; then
    setup && execute && finish
fi

Afterwards, the execution of the script is enabled: 

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sudo chmod +x /usr/local/bin/idoit-jobs

From now on, every user can use it:

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idoit-jobs

The following tasks are carried out when the script is executed:

Automation of Jobs Calls#

When and how often?#

We recommend executing the above mentioned jobs at least once per day. You should ensure that no other interactions are carried out in i-doit during the execution - neither via the web GUI nor through additional scripts or by external applications via the API. Therefore the jobs are usually carried out during the night.

GNU/Linux#

Under Linux you can run automated commands on a regular basis. You could use cron, anacron, crontab or systemd.timer.

Windows#

The scripts mentioned in this article do not work under Windows withour further ado and should be replaced by equivalent scripts. Windows tasks are suitable for the automation.

Catch problems#

In order to intercept possible errors and to report them to the responsible system administrator, you can configure the operating system in such a way that e-mails are sent correspondingly. A simple mailer is sSMTP. However, the idoit-jobs script creates a lot of output on the shell. You can apply the chronic tool to achieve that only errors are reported. This tool can be installed retroactively on many operating systems, often it is contained in the moreutils distribution package.

Attention

The moreutils package and thus the chronic tool are not part of SLES. Therefore you have to download chronic manually from the website:

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wget https://git.joeyh.name/index.cgi/moreutils.git/plain/chronic
chmod +x chronic
sudo mv chronic /usr/bin/
wget -O - https://cpanmin.us | perl - --sudo App::cpanminus
sudo cpanm --notest --install IPC::Run

Example for Cron#

We create a new file for Cron:

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sudo nano /etc/cron.d/i-doit

The file obtains the following contents:

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## i-doit cron jobs

MAILTO="sysadmin@i-doit.example.net"

5 5 * * *   www-data    test -x /usr/local/bin/idoit-jobs && /usr/bin/chronic /usr/local/bin/idoit-jobs

Every day at 5:05 a.m. the idoit-jobs script is executed with the permissions of the Apacheuser www-data. To achieve that only errors are sent per mail, we use *chronic*. The errors are sent via mail notifications.