[Tutor] running python program on Linux Virtual Server - Plesk?

[Christian Witts]

Michael Yang wrote:
> thanks. so this would run my script on a schedule i specify.  And its 
> a "set it and forget it" deal.
>
> but if i want to view the output of the program (ie. the program has 
> various print statements to show program's status), how would I do 
> this while its running the job?
>
> MIke
>
> On Thu, Sep 3, 2009 at 2:45 AM, Christian Witts 
> <cwitts at compuscan.co.za <mailto:cwitts at compuscan.co.za>> wrote:
>
>     Michael Yang wrote:
>
>         Hi Everyone,
>
>         I'm new to programming and to python.
>         I have a program I want to run on my Media Temple Virtual
>         Server (dv) - Linux. which has the latest Plesk 9 virtuozzo
>         installed.
>
>         Ultimately I want it to run the program (main.py) on a
>         scheduled basis.  How do I do this?
>
>
>
>         Thanks!
>
>         -Mike
>         ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>
>
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>
>     Are you able to run it as a cron job ?  That would be by far the
>     easiest solution.
>
>     crontab -e
>     syntax when editing is "minute hour dayOfMonth month dayofWeek
>     command" so you would do
>     0 0-23 * * * python main.py
>     which would run your python script every hour every day.
>     Personally, if you do schedule it like this you would better off
>     calling a shell script with the cron job and in the shell script
>     listing certain environment variables you might need and then
>     calling the script.  The job won't be running under your normal
>     user account so you might need to add them.
>
>     -- 
>     Kind Regards,
>     Christian Witts
>
>
>
>
>
> -- 
> Thanks,
> Michael Yang
>
> 917-699-4655 phone
> 212-500-0553 fax
It is indeed "set and forget".  Once your cron job is setup it was 
always execute the command for you at your scheduled intervals.  Another 
creative way of running it would be to call 'at' at the end of the 
script to execute it again, for example 'at -f name_of_shell_script.sh 
now + 30 minutes' which would run it again in 30 minutes for you.

If you change your print statements to write it to a log file instead, 
or in your shell script use the redirection characters > or >> to push 
the output to a file you want then you can use "tail -f filename" to 
watch the log file as output comes through.

-- 
Kind Regards,
Christian Witts