Running A Cronjob Inside Docker Container In 5 Steps

Nivesh Goyal -

In this blog, we are going to discuss and understand the steps on how to set a Cron job inside the container.

Prerequisites:

  • Docker should be installed on your system.
  • You should have an account on GitHub.

What is a Cron job?

Cron is a job scheduler. A cron job is a command which is used for scheduling tasks to be executed automatically after a specific time period. Mostly cron jobs are used for executing scripts, taking backup of files, etc.

Steps to run cron job inside a container:

  1. Create a script file(task file)
  2. Create a cron job file
  3. Create a docker file
  4. Create a docker image from docker file
  5. Run the docker image inside the container

Create a script file:

First, create a script file as per your requirement, which commands or tasks you have to run, and save into the “.sh” file. Here, I have created a script.sh file:

!/bin/bash
touch/var/log/cron.log
crontab/etc/cron.d/container_cronjob
  1. Create a cron job file:

Now create a cron file and write cron job details inside the file, like at what time you want to run your task. Below is the sample cron file, in this the script is running every minute.

* * * * * echo “The test cron ran at $(date)” > /proc/1/fd/1 2>/proc/1/fd/2

NOTE:

In the cron job file, an empty line is required at the end of the file for a valid cron file.

  1. Create a docker file:

Finally, create a docker file and build your docker image. Below is a sample Dockerfile.

# Pulling ubuntu image with a specific tag from the docker hub.
FROM ubuntu:18.04

# Adding maintainer name (Optional).
MAINTAINER Nivesh_goyal

# Updating the packages and installing cron and vim editor if you later want to edit your script from inside your container.
RUN apt-get update \  
&& apt-get install cron -y && apt-get install vim -y

# Crontab file copied to cron.d directory.
COPY ./files/cronjob /etc/cron.d/container_cronjob

# Script file copied into container.
COPY ./files/script.sh /script.sh

# Giving executable permission to script file.
RUN chmod +x /script.sh

# Running commands for the startup of a container.
CMD [“/bin/bash”, “-c”, “/script.sh && chmod 644 /etc/cron.d/container_cronjob && cron && tail -f /var/log/cron.log”]

NOTE:

Put the cron job file and script file inside the same directory in your code repository where you  are keeping your Dockerfile.

  1. Create a Docker Image:

Now run the following command to build the Dockerfile. You can change the tag as per your need:

# docker build –tag cronjob:testing .
  1. Run the docker image inside the container:

Now Spin up a container using the above image, run the following command:

# docker run -itd –name container_name cronjob:testing

Note:

If you want to check, your cron is running or not, run below command from outside the container:

# docker logs –tail 100 -f container_name

That’s all about how you can run a cron job inside a Docker container. If you want to deploy it inside the Kubernetes cluster using Devtron’s CI/CD tool, follow this blog.

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