Solved Support at command in LAMP app

[alex-adestech]

Is it possible to enable the at command using a LAMP app?

I installed it using apt-get in a custom LAMP app, but I cannot enable it or use it. My goal is to schedule a task (run a script) at the indicated time (timestamps are downloaded from a server and may vary from day to day).

[girish]

@alex-adestech Looks like the at command will require a daemon atd to run. Would it be possible to workaround using cron instead? The lamp app has built-in cron support using which you can schedule at any specific time - https://cloudron.io/documentation/apps/lamp/#cron-support

[alex-adestech]

@girish Well, the thing is that I download a JSON Object with some timestamps indicating the next time the server needs to run a specific script. These timestamps are different each day.

For example, Monday the 1st should run at 3pm and 5 pm, but next Monday should run at 1pm and 9 pm.

Could it be possible to edit the crontab file using a script?
The lamp app needs to restart after cron has changed right?

Maybe that could be a workaround.

[girish]

@alex-adestech Ah, I see. The usual workaround for this is to put a command in crontab like so:

0 * * * * php /app/data/periodic.php

The above runs every hour. Then in periodic.php, you can check the current time or some file to see what tasks you want to run etc.

Would that work?

[alex-adestech]

@girish you're a genius man! I think it should work, I'll try it and come back. Thanks!!