Scheduled tasks

What can you do with it?

• Run a command on a schedule: every N minutes, at a fixed time, on certain days or with the hourly, daily and weekly shortcuts.
• Run the task once right now, or stop a run in progress.
• Change the command or schedule of an existing task.
• See the next and last run, and read the logs of the command and of the timer.

When should you use it?

• Periodic cleanups, exports or syncs that do not belong to an ArduMaker app.
• A script that must run even if the VPS was off at that time (it runs on power-up).

How does it work in ArduMaker?

Checks before touching the VPS

• Name: the same rules as a systemd service (nombre_invalido).
• Command: a single line, up to 4000 characters, with closed quotes (comando_invalido). If it uses pipes, &&, variables, redirections or shell builtins, it is wrapped automatically in /bin/sh -c "…" with the needed escaping.
• Schedule: an OnCalendar expression (daily, *-*-* 02:00:00, Mon..Fri *-*-* 10:00, *-*-* *:0/5:00 Europe/Madrid). Shortcuts: 5 or */5 mean every 5 minutes, and 1 every minute.
• The validation error says which field failed in data.fields.

Creation

1. Copies of the unit and the timer are kept if they already existed.
2. /etc/systemd/system/<nombre>.service (Type=oneshot, output to the journal under the task name) and /etc/systemd/system/<nombre>.timer (OnCalendar, Persistent=true) are written.
3. daemon-reload, the timer is started and enabled at boot. If a step fails, the new files are deleted and the copies restored.
4. With start=true the command also runs once right then (if that run fails, the task is still created).

Edit, control and delete

• Edit reads the current command and schedule, deletes the task and creates it again with the new values. The edited task is left enabled.
• `start` runs the command now; `stop` stops that run (it does not stop the timer).
• `enable` and `disable` change whether the timer starts with the system. disable does not stop a timer that is already active: it keeps firing until the next VPS reboot.
• Delete stops and disables the timer, removes both files and reloads systemd. There are no protected names.

What actually changes?

• /etc/systemd/system/<nombre>.service and /etc/systemd/system/<nombre>.timer, with 644 permissions.
• The command runs as root, and its output stays in the journal tagged with the task name.
• An entry in the VPS activity log for each creation, edit, action and deletion.

# <nombre>.timer
[Unit]
Description=Timer for task: limpieza

[Timer]
OnCalendar=*-*-* 02:00:00
Unit=limpieza.service
Persistent=true

[Install]
WantedBy=timers.target

Diagram

Expected result

• Create, edit and control return timer_status, is_enabled and, except on create, next_run.
• ver_tarea_vps shows the service and timer content, the status, and the next and last run.
• ver_logs_tarea_vps with log_type: "service" shows the command output; with "timer", the timer's.

systemctl list-timers --no-pager
journalctl -u limpieza.service -n 50 --no-pager

Errors and troubleshooting

Creating with the same name replaces the task; retrying after a cut is safe with the same idempotency_key. controlar_tarea_vps with start runs the command again each time.

MCP access

Yes, in the /mcp and /mcp/vps profiles.

Reference at /mcp/docs and examples at /mcp/servicios.

Related features

• systemd services
• Backups
• Monitoring
• VPS servers