Linux - Run script after time period expires - node.js

Question

I have a small NodeJS script that does some processing. Depending on the amount of data needing to be processed, this can take a couple of seconds to hours.
What I want is to do is schedule this command to run every hour after the previous attempt has completed. I'm wary of using something like cron because I need to ensure that two instances of the script aren't running at the same.

Answer 1

If you really don't like cron (or at) you can just use a simple bash script:
#!/bin/bash
while true
do
#Do something
echo Invoke long-running node.js script
#Wait an hour
sleep 3600
done
The (obvious) drawback is that you will have to make it run in background somehow (i.e. via nohup or screen) and add a proper error handling (taking that you script might fail, and you still want it to run again in an hour).
A bit more elaborate "custom script" solution might be like that:
#!/bin/bash
#Settings
LAST_RUN_FILE=/var/run/lock/hourly.timestamp
FLOCK_LOCK_FILE=/var/run/lock/hourly.lock
FLOCK_FD=100
#Minimum time to wait between two job runs
MIN_DELAY=3600
#Welcome message, parameter check
if [ -z $1 ]
then
echo "Please specify the command (job) to run, as follows:"
echo "./hourly COMMAND"
exit 1
fi
echo "[$(date)] MIN_DELAY=$MIN_DELAY seconds, JOB=$#"
#Set an exclusive lock, or skip execution if it is already set
eval "exec $FLOCK_FD>$FLOCK_LOCK_FILE"
if ! flock -n $FLOCK_FD
then
echo "Lock is already set, skipping execution."
exit 0
fi
#Last run timestamp
if ! [ -e $LAST_RUN_FILE ]
then
echo "Timestamp file ($LAST_RUN_FILE) is missing, creating a new one."
echo 0 >$LAST_RUN_FILE
fi
#Compute delay, and wait
let DELAY="$MIN_DELAY-($(date +%s)-$(cat $LAST_RUN_FILE))"
if [ $DELAY -gt 0 ]
then
echo "Waiting for $DELAY seconds, before proceeding..."
sleep $DELAY
fi
#Proceed with an actual task
echo "[$(date)] Running the task..."
echo
"$#"
#Update the last run timestamp
echo
echo "Done, going to update the last run timestamp now."
date +%s >$LAST_RUN_FILE
This will do 2 things:
Set an exclusive execution lock (with flock), so that no two instances of the job will run at the same time, irregardless of how you start them (manually or via cron e.t.c.);
If the last job was completed less then MIN_DELAY seconds ago,
it will sleep for the remaining time, before running the job again;
Now, if you schedule this script to run, say every 15 minutes with cron, like that:
* * * * * /home/myuser/hourly my_periodic_task and it's arguments
It will be guaranteed to execute with the fixed delay of at least MIN_DELAY (one hour) since the last job completed, and any intermediate runs will be skipped.
In the worst case, it will execute in MIN_DELAY + 15 minutes,
(as the scheduling period is discrete), but never earlier than that.
Other non-cron scheduling methods should work too (i.e. just running this script in a loop, or re-scheduling and each run with at).

Answer 2

You can use a cron and add process.exit(0) to your node script