Django Apache - Run script as Root

Question

My django project calls a python file at a scheduled time using "at" scheduler. This is executed within my models.py

command = 'echo "python /path/to/script.py params" | /usr/bin/at -t [time] &> path/to/at.log'
status = os.system(command)

Where [time] is schedule time. It works perfectly when I run it within Django Dev server (I usually run as root but it also works with other users as well) But when I deployed my application on Apache using mod_wsgi, it doesn't work. at logs shows that the job was schedule but it doesn't execute it. I tried everything from changing the ownership to www-data, permissions, made it into executable to all users, to setuid to root (Huge Security Issue) The last thing I want to do is run apache as root user.

at command only takes the name of the executable which is to be scheduled for execution with no parameters. echo basically forces at to schedule the executable along with it's parameters. Look up the man page for at — melsk
– melsk, Commented Aug 18, 2011 at 21:06
I think you're missing a set of quotes. Echo is written as a python keyword. — Leopd
– Leopd, Commented Aug 18, 2011 at 21:14

Zach Kelling · Accepted Answer · 2011-08-12 19:26:16Z

2

Use cron or celery for scheduled tasks. If you need to run something as root, it'd make sense to re-write your script as a simple daemon and run that as root, you can pass commands to it pretty easily with zeromq.

edited Aug 12, 2011 at 19:26

answered Aug 12, 2011 at 17:23

Zach Kelling

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4 Comments

melsk Over a year ago

It ain't a recurring job, so can I use cron?

Zach Kelling Over a year ago

It's not recurring? I assumed it was. When/how often do you want this task run?

Zach Kelling Over a year ago

I would suggest using celery for spinning off tasks. You can use it without a broker, it's fairly easy to setup. To work around the root issue, you could setup a daemon process running as root, and issue commands to it with zeromq or something.

melsk Over a year ago

Thanks. I'll take a note of it next time. However, I made python write a bash file and made at execute that file to circumvent the root issue. However I noted that this issue only turns up on the production with apache on it.

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