/cron-jobs

Primary LanguagePython

Cron Jobs

This project consists of a set of scripts that can be used to automate the process of creating and deleting cron jobs. There are two folders flask and nodejs, each containing different cron jobs implemented using different packages for managing the cron job schedules with specific functionalities.

Built with

  • Flask
    • APScheduler - A light but powerful in-process task scheduler that lets you schedule functions (or any other python callables) to be executed at times of your choosing.
    • Flask Mail - A package for Flask that makes it easy to send emails.
  • NodeJS and Express
    • node-cron - A package for Node.js that allows you to schedule cron jobs.
    • nodemailer - A module for Node.js applications to allow email sending.
    • Twilio - A module for Node.js applications to allow SMS sending.
    • OpenWeatherMap - An API for getting weather updates.

Getting Started

Download the project code locally Fork the project repository and clone your forked repository to your machine.

Prerequisites

Flask Cron Jobs

The flask folder contains Flask-based cron jobs responsible for web scraping and sending emails. The APScheduler package is used to schedule these cron jobs, BeautifulSoup for web scraping and Flask-Mail for sending emails .The cron jobs are:

  1. Demo - This is a simple cron job that runs at regular intervals, specifically every second. It can be used as a template for creating other cron jobs.
  2. Google Career Scraper Cron Job - This cron job scrapes Google Careers 9am every Monday and sends an email to a given recipient.
  3. Variety News Scraper Cron Job - This cron job scrapes Variety news every day and sends an email to a given recipient.

NodeJS Cron Jobs

The nodejs folder contains three cron jobs. The node-cron package is used to schedule these cron jobs. The cron jobs are:

  1. demo.js - This is a simple cron job that runs at regular intervals, specifically every 2 seconds. It can be used as a template for creating other cron jobs.
  2. Email Cron Job - This cron job sends an email every 5 seconds, demonstrating how to use node-cron to send emails periodically. It uses the nodemailer package to send emails.
  3. Weather SMS Cron Job - This cron job sends an SMS of the weather update using Twilio every weekday at 9:45 AM. It uses the Twilio API to send SMS messages.

Installation

Flask

Navigate to the flask folder.

  1. Create a virtual environment for the project 
    virtualenv venv
  2. Activate the virtual environment 
    source venv/bin/activate
  3. Install the dependencies 
    pip install -r requirements.txt
  4. Run the application 
    python app.py
  5. Open the application in your browser 
    http://localhost:5000
  6. To stop the application, press Ctrl + C

NodeJS

Navigate to the nodejs folder.

  1. Install the dependencies 
    npm install
  2. Run the application 
    npm start
  3. Open the application in your browser 
    http://localhost:3000
  4. To stop the application, press Ctrl + C

Configuration

Flask

Before running the application, you need to configure the following environment variables:

  1. MAIL_USERNAME - The email address of the sender
  2. MAIL_PASSWORD - The password of the sender's email address

Create a .env file at the flask level and add the variables to it (otherwise hard code their strings in config.py file).

MAIL_USERNAME=your_email_address
MAIL_PASSWORD=your_email_password

Other variables that can be updated include:

  1. MAIL_RECIPIENT - The email address of the recipient

NodeJS

Before running the application, you need to configure the following environment variables:

  1. EMAILUSER - The email address of the sender
  2. EMAILPASS - The password of the sender's email address
  3. TWILIO_ACCOUNT_SID - The Twilio account SID
  4. TWILIO_AUTH_TOKEN - The Twilio auth token
  5. TWILIO_PHONE_NUMBER - The Twilio phone number
  6. WEATHER_API_KEY - The OpenWeatherMap API key

Create a .env file at the nodejs level and add the variables to it (otherwise hard code their strings in their respective files).
Other variables that can be updated include:

  1. MAIL_RECIPIENT - The email address of the recipient
  2. RECIPIENT_PHONE_NUMBER - The recipient's phone number

API Endpoints

Flask

  1. / - The home page
  2. /demo_job - The endpoint that starts the demo cron job
  3. /job_listings - The endpoint that starts the Google Careers cron job
  4. /news - The endpoint that starts the Variety News cron job
  5. /stop_job/<job_id> - The endpoint that stops the cron job with the given job ID
  6. /stop_jobs - The endpoint that stops all the cron jobs

NodeJS

  1. /startmail - The endpoint that starts the email cron job
  2. /startsms - The endpoint that starts the weather cron job
  3. /stopmail - The endpoint that stops the email cron job
  4. /stopsms - The endpoint that stops the weather cron job
  5. /stopall - The endpoint that stops all the cron jobs

Note - Curl commands can be used to start and stop the cron jobs. For example, to start the flask demo cron job, run the following command:

curl http://localhost:5000/demo_job

To stop the demo cron job, run the following command:

curl http://localhost:5000/stop_job/demo_job

Author

Precious Michael - preciousmichael