Running Ruby on Rails rake tasks from cron
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Details:
Rake is a RubyGem. Each (gs) Grid-Service manages it's own set of RubyGems. This is accomplished via a set of environment variables that are initialized every time you log into your (gs) via ssh. They are initialized in the .bash_profile file that is in your home directory. This allows rake to function when you are logged in via ssh.
When rake is run in a cron, the .bash_profile file is not processed, so you must include the environment initialization in your cron script. Here is an example script:
#!/bin/sh
export PATH=$PATH:/home/#####/data/rubygems/bin:/home/#####/data/rubygems/gems/bin
export RUBYLIB=/home/#####/data/rubygems/local/lib/site_ruby/1.8:/home/#####/data/rubygems/lib
export GEM_HOME=/home/#####/data/rubygems/gems
cd $HOME/../../containers/rails/[appname]
echo "Clearing logs..."
rake log:clear
# other rake tasks
You may also use this method to perform mtr tasks. Simply replace the 'rake' command on the last line with mtr. So, instead of 'rake log:clear' you could do 'mtr restart appname'. This will essentially allow you to automate mtr tasks if needed.
NOTE:
This is just an example. The exact lines are found by running the following command when logged into your (gs) via ssh:
cat $HOME/.bash_profileJust look for the three lines that start with "export".
Revisions:
07-20-2009: Minor Fixes
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