at - specific time & date

[dulh...@mailbox.org]

I want to automate a list of command exections with at.

Looking at the at modules documentation I see only unit & count for specify the time and date. That looks a litte unprecise to me.

What is the concepts here to specify something like '16:00 2023-01-19'?

[Andrew Latham]

So you are using ansible.posix.at?

That plugin uses a file to run AT as seen at https://github.com/ansible-collections/ansible.posix/blob/main/plugins/modules/at.py#L82

So in the code it uses the ```now +``` method. This may be a situation where a command/shell call would be the solution.

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[Vladimir Botka]

On Mon, 12 Dec 2022 15:30:07 +0100 (CET)

dulhaver via Ansible Project <ansible...@googlegroups.com> wrote:

> I want to automate a list of command exections with at.

> What is the concepts here to specify something like '16:00 2023-01-19'?

For example, to schedule a command at "2022-12-12 17:30:00" declare
the variables

now_datetime: "{{ '%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S'|strftime }}"
at_datetime: "2022-12-12 17:30:00"
at_seconds: "{{ ((at_datetime|to_datetime) -
(now_datetime|
to_datetime('%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S'))).seconds }}"
at_minutes: "{{ (at_seconds|int / 60)|int + 1 }}"

gives

now_datetime: 2022-12-12 17:26:23
at_datetime: 2022-12-12 17:30:00
at_seconds: 217
at_minutes: 4

Use the variable *at_minutes*

- ansible.posix.at:
command: date > /tmp/test_at
count: "{{ at_minutes }}"
units: minutes
- command: at -l
register: out
- debug:
var: out.stdout

will display the queue

out.stdout: "5\tMon Dec 12 17:30:00 2022 a admin"

The command executed as expected

shell> cat /tmp/test_at
Mon 12 Dec 2022 05:30:00 PM CET

Example of a complete playbook for testing

- hosts: localhost

vars:

now_datetime: "{{ '%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S'|strftime }}"
at_datetime: "2022-12-12 17:30:00"
at_seconds: "{{ ((at_datetime|to_datetime) -
(now_datetime|
to_datetime('%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S'))).seconds }}"
at_minutes: "{{ (at_seconds|int /
60)|int + 1 }}"

tasks:

- debug:
msg: |
now_datetime: {{ now_datetime }}
at_datetime: {{ at_datetime }}
at_seconds: {{ at_seconds }}
at_minutes: {{ at_minutes }}

- ansible.posix.at:
command: date > /tmp/test_at
count: "{{ at_minutes }}"
units: minutes

- command: at -l
register: out

- debug:
var: out.stdout

--
Vladimir Botka

[dulh...@mailbox.org]

thx that really works. It is not really user-friendly though.

Apparently I am not the only one thinking this should be easier, so there is an issue for adding a more intuitive way to specify time and date https://github.com/ansible-collections/ansible.posix/issues/326

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[Vladimir Botka]

On Tue, 13 Dec 2022 09:23:40 +0100 (CET)
dulhaver via Ansible Project <ansible...@googlegroups.com> wrote:

> thx that really works. It is not really user-friendly though.
>
> Apparently I am not the only one thinking this should be easier, so there is an issue for adding a more intuitive way to specify time and date https://github.com/ansible-collections/ansible.posix/issues/326

> > now_datetime: "{{ '%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S'|strftime }}"
> > at_datetime: "2022-12-12 17:30:00"
> > at_seconds: "{{ ((at_datetime|to_datetime) -

> > (now_datetime|to_datetime)).seconds }}"

> > at_minutes: "{{ (at_seconds|int / 60)|int + 1 }}"
> >

> > - ansible.posix.at:
> > command: date > /tmp/test_at
> > count: "{{ at_minutes }}"
> > units: minutes

Yes, it's rather awkward. I simplified the declaration of
*at_seconds*. It might be a good idea to have a conversion function
for this, e.g.

- ansible.posix.at:
command: date > /tmp/test_at

count: "{{ at_datetime|at_minutes }}"
units: minutes
vars:

at_datetime: "2022-12-12 17:30:00"

Try

shell> cat plugins/filter/at_minutes.py
from datetime import datetime


def at_minutes(at_datetime):
timesince = datetime.fromisoformat(at_datetime) - datetime.now()
return int(timesince.total_seconds() / 60 + 1)


class FilterModule(object):

def filters(self):
return {
'at_minutes': at_minutes,
}


--
Vladimir Botka

[dulh...@mailbox.org]

That works! Even with looping

##################################################################
- hosts: localhost

tasks:

- ansible.posix.at:
command: date > /tmp/test_at
count: "{{ at_datetime|at_minutes }}"
units: minutes
vars:

at_datetime: "{{ item }}"
loop:
- "2022-12-13 12:09"
- "2022-12-13 12:10"
- "2022-12-13 12:13"
##################################################################

would it be worth a PR on the issue or is this too quick'n'dirty?

It seems to be a different approach then the one suggested in the PR though (I can not judge on any of that due to missing python skills).

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[Vladimir Botka]

> count: "{{ at_datetime|at_minutes }}"
> ...

> would it be worth a PR on the issue or is this too quick'n'dirty?

It's quick'n'clean I'd say :)

Yes, it's worth PR. I'll write tests for this. The question is which
collection?

--
Vladimir Botka

[dulh...@mailbox.org]

> Yes, it's worth PR. I'll write tests for this. The question is which
> collection?

honestly, I am still not really 100% sure what the term 'collection' actually means in the Ansible context and how things are organized. The issue, however, lives in ansible-collection/ansible.posix. Isn't that hint enough?

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[Vladimir Botka]

On Tue, 13 Dec 2022 15:15:06 +0100 (CET)

dulhaver via Ansible Project <ansible...@googlegroups.com> wrote:

> > Yes, it's worth PR. I'll write tests for this. The question is which
> > collection?
>
>
> honestly, I am still not really 100% sure what the term
> 'collection' actually means in the Ansible context and how things
> are organized. The issue, however, lives in
> ansible-collection/ansible.posix. Isn't that hint enough?

I'm not sure if this kind of datetime conversion belongs to POSIX.

To learn about collections see https://github.com/ansible-collections

For example, Ansible.Posix, where the module ansible.posix.at comes
from, is "Ansible Collection targeting POSIX and POSIX-ish platforms."
https://docs.ansible.com/ansible/latest/collections/ansible/posix/index.html


--
Vladimir Botka