Is it safe to use crontab on a ERPNext server?

1

I have ERPNext deployed on a VPS host and would like to setup cron jobs for other server functions. I know that ERPNext and frappe use cron in a different sort of way and I just want to make sure that it is safe to use the regular crontab interface to setup jobs on the underlying Ubuntu server.

I don’t want to upset the delicate balance of the ERPNExt deployment if running crontab would interfere with anything.

Any help here?

BKM

2

As long as you’re dealing with non-ERPNext functions and dependencies, it should be fine. If you’re dealing with ERPNext functions and dependencies, then the answer will be “it depends”.

3

crontab is perfectly safe as either the frappe user, or any other user on the system.
you could also create a new user and run the cron jobs as that user .
As root, you can see what cronjobs exist for other users too with

crontab -l USERNAME

4

Appears command arguments are incorrect and command is “crontab -u frappe -l”

From the current Linux vm (or at least as of a couple months ago):

root@ubuntu:~# crontab -l frappe
crontab: usage error: no arguments permitted after this option
usage:  crontab [-u user] file
        crontab [ -u user ] [ -i ] { -e | -l | -r }
                (default operation is replace, per 1003.2)
        -e      (edit user's crontab)
        -l      (list user's crontab)
        -r      (delete user's crontab)
        -i      (prompt before deleting user's crontab)

but

root@ubuntu:~# crontab -u frappe -l
# job definition:
# .---------------- minute (0 - 59)
# | .------------- hour (0 - 23)
# | | .---------- day of month (1 - 31)
# | | | .------- month (1 - 12) OR jan,feb,mar,apr ...
# | | | | .---- day of week (0 - 6) (Sunday=0 or 7) OR sun,mon,tue,wed,thu,fri,sat
# | | | | |
# * * * * * user-name command to be executed
0 10 * * * cd /home/frappe/frappe-bench &&  /home/frappe/frappe-bench/env/bin/bench update --auto >> /home/frappe/frappe-bench/logs/auto_update_log.log 2>&1

# create erpnext backup daily at 03:00 (3am)
0 03 * * * cd /home/frappe/frappe-bench && /usr/local/bin/bench backup --with-files >> /home/frappe/frappe-bench/logs/crontab_backup_log.log 2>&1
root@ubuntu:~#

By the way, the first line in the frappe user crontab above is as the file was originally in the downloaded vm from erpnext.org. I tried copying and editing the line to create a daily backup, and found I had to change the bench invocation “/home/frappe/frappe-bench/env/bin/bench” to “/usr/local/bin/bench” for the backup to run.

I have left the original line as-is above, but I am correct to understand that the original “bench update” in the frappe user crontab never actually runs?

Cheers,
Dale