How to add or delete crontab entry without python-crontab module

Asked Jan 16 '17 at 18:53

Active Jan 16 '17 at 19:58

Viewed 303 times

To start, I cannot install new python modules and have to work with what is there already. So I want to add or delete entries in the crontab with my python script and have to pass arguments thru. As python-crontab is not an option I have to work with os, sys, subprocess and shlex.

I have tried to following:

commandstring = '(crontab -l 2>/dev/null; echo "0 5 5 5 * '/bin/date +%Y` == 2017 && /bin/touch filename") | crontab -'
subprocess.call(shlex.split(commandstring))

But gives me an error back. Maybe I don't understand how the shlex works and how to format the string. Or there might be a better way to do this.

What i want to achieve is that i want to use cron to create files with specific filenames and the touch command at a specific date/time and delete those file as a specific date/time. "at" is also not installed, so i have to use cron.

It seems like shell.py would be the right way, but as I cannot install new modules, same problem as with python-crontab.

edited Jan 16 '17 at 19:58

Guillaume Jacquenot

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asked Jan 16 '17 at 18:53

Empusas

It looks like syntax highlighting already shows the problem. – Willem Van Onsem Jan 16 '17 at 18:54
Check this: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/89228/calling-an-external-command-in-python – MikeVelazco Jan 16 '17 at 19:07

How to add or delete crontab entry without python-crontab module

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