Cronjob included in dockerfile, but cronjob does not get executed after app is deployed

Questions / Help
1

Hi,
I would like to delete and seed my mongodb database. I have a script that does exactly this. At the moment I did not figure out, how to schedule a cron job on the fly.io machine. I thought, that I need to include necessary commands to run the script in the dockerfile. Unfortunately, It does not work.
Here is the dockerfile:

# syntax = docker/dockerfile:1

ARG NODE_VERSION=20.11.1
FROM node:${NODE_VERSION}-slim as base

LABEL fly_launch_runtime="Node.js"

WORKDIR /app

ENV NODE_ENV="production"

RUN apt-get update && apt-get install -y --no-install-recommends cron && rm -rf /var/lib/apt/lists/*

FROM base as build

RUN apt-get update -qq && \
    apt-get install --no-install-recommends -y build-essential node-gyp pkg-config python-is-python3

COPY --link package-lock.json package.json ./
RUN npm ci

COPY --link . .

FROM base

COPY --from=build /app /app

COPY databaseCleanUp.js /app/database.js

RUN echo "*/5 * * * * node /app/database.js >> /var/log/cron.log 2>&1" > /etc/cron.d/database_schedule

RUN chmod 0644 /etc/cron.d/database_schedule && crontab /etc/cron.d/database_schedule

EXPOSE 3000
CMD cron && npm run start
2

Isn’t the machine supposed to be suspended, once unused i.e. not actively accessed?

3

Thanks for your answer. I think I’m going to switch to some other service.

4

If you are using a Cloud service, the problem won’t disappear by switching services. All modern Cloud services are based on usage, i.e. the machine is only running, when it’s actually used.
This is why for certain use cases, you can usually set up always-on instances, which do not shut down and keep running 24/7.

I know, there is a functionality like that for AWS, not sure about fly.io.

Maybe, it is this.

If not, you could still have something access the machine constantly, which would keep it running 24/7.

5

Are you running the database.js every 5 minutes to cleanup/seed a db? :eyes:

6

Thank you for your post. What I might do, even though it means more deployment “work” is to run a VPS. Then it is assured that it runs 24/7.

7

It’s just for testing purposes.

8

Then perhaps a cloud service is not what you are looking for, regarding your specific use case.

9

Yes, maybe :thinking: but thank you for your post :slightly_smiling_face:

1 Like
10

Some options:

P.S. If you don’t want your machines to auto_stop, you can configure that in your fly.toml.

11

Hi :grinning:, the links you provided are useful, and the first link leads to the solution of my problem, so I will mark your post as the solution. Thank you :heartbeat:

12

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