25
Create an automated terminal command? (lemmy.ca)
submitted 3 weeks ago by to c/linux@lemmy.ml
12 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

Newish to Linux and slowly learning lol. I recently got a podcast downloader working through rss with castget, works great. The command to get new eps that haven't been downloaded is castget -c.

Is there a way to automate this, so the command runs say every day at a set time?

all 12 comments

sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] 26 points 3 weeks ago (7 children)

There are users that still swear by cron, but on modern systems a systemd timer is generally advised.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • hideshow 7 child comments
    •
  • [–] 2 points 3 weeks ago (3 children)

    If systemd is running, as it is on the great majority of distributions, then cron is running on top of it, as just another service. It’s not an either-or situation.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 3 child comments
    •
  • [–] 7 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

    It's not. But the systemd timer has more robust logging and monitoring, and much more explicit and readable syntax.

    Once you get used to systemd timers, it's really hard to see why you wouldn't use them if your system has systemd. Unless writing crontabs by hand makes you feel like a hacker I guess. I'm not even being totally sarcastic about that - there is a fun retro feel to cron.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 2 child comments
    •
  • [–] 5 points 3 weeks ago (1 child)

    I generally like their outcome, but hate the boilerplate. I think I need somewhere around 20 lines over two different files which would otherwise be a one-liner in a cron file.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 1 child comment
    •
  • [–] 4 points 3 weeks ago

    Yeah. Once you spend an afternoon debugging a failing cron job, the 5 minutes needed to write the boilerplate starts to feel pretty ok though.

    I've never had to spend an afternoon debugging a failing systemd timer in the years since I made the switch.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
    • [–] 10 points 3 weeks ago

    cron/crontab are the general things you want to search for. They are used for running commands on a schedule, which is what you want.

    You can also use systemd timers. Pick the one that your OS supports.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
    •
    [–] 4 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

    You can set up a cron job to run a command on a schedule that you want. Here is one of many pages that explains that How to Set Up Cron Jobs on Linux (crontab Guide)

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • hideshow 2 child comments
    •
  • [–] [S] 2 points 3 weeks ago*

    This seems way more straight forward than i remember lol. I'm on Cachy, which apparently doesn't have cron out of the box. Just installed cronie, ran crontab -e, and if I enter:

    0 6 * * * * castget -c

    (with spaces between 0 6 * etc?) that's it? It'll run every day at 6am?

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent