[turtle]

So I’m working to migrate from cron to launchd and can't seem to figure out how to make a one-liner cron a new .plist for LaunchDaemons. Anyone good with this? For one of my jobs I ended up making a bash script and calling it. This seems like a horrible waste of resources though since it only needs to be a one-liner:

* * * * * loadavg1=`sysctl -n vm.loadavg|awk '{print $2}'`;curl -d "email=XXXXXXX&stat=Load Average&value=$loadavg1" http://api.stathat.com/ez  > /dev/null 2>&1; unset loadavg1

This ended up being this .plist:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?><!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd"><plist version="1.0"><dict>	<key>Label</key>	<string>loadavg_stathat</string>	<key>UserName</key>	<string>root</string>	<key>Program</key>	<string>/Users/User/Dropbox/Documents/code/StatHat.command</string>	<key>StartInterval</key>	<integer>60</integer>	<key>Debug</key>	<false/>	<key>AbandonProcessGroup</key>	<true/></dict></plist>

The code for that target file is:

#!/bin/bashloadavg1=`sysctl -n vm.loadavg|awk '{print $2}'`curl -d "email=xxxxxxxxx&stat=Load Average&value=$loadavg1" http://api.stathat.com/ez

Doesn't all that seem overkill for a single line cron command?

Similarly I have an rsync to run that I just don't want to put in a script for a basic one-liner, this would be a simple cron too:

* 4,10,16,22 * * * rsync -avzP --exclude=Cache User@192.168.xxx.xxx:/Volumes/MCMaps/an/ /Library/WebServer/mcmaps/

Also, I have looked at Apple's man page, and even this on creating the jobs.

[turtle]

So is it safe to assume that no one really understands how to use launchd then?

[drewprops]

I do not, if that helps.
If it's not Brad or Chucker then give up


...

[chucker]

I don't really understand your question.

[turtle]

As simply put as I can; how do I make this:

* 4,10,16,22 * * * rsync -avzP --exclude=Cache User@192.168.xxx.xxx:/Volumes/MCMaps/an/ /Library/WebServer/mcmaps/

or this:

* * * * * loadavg1=`sysctl -n vm.loadavg|awk '{print $2}'`;curl -d "email=XXXXXXX&stat=Load Average&value=$loadavg1" http://api.stathat.com/ez  > /dev/null 2>&1; unset loadavg1

a .plist for launchd.

Expanded a little father, I don't want to have a .plist that calls a different script. I want it all in one job .plist just like that cron is a one liner.

[chucker]

Yeah, so your question isn't so much how to make it work, but how to avoid having separate .plist and .sh files? The first one is probably feasible using ProgramArguments, like so:

    <key>Program</key>    <string>rsync</string>    <key>ProgramArguments</key>    <array>        <string>-avzP</string>        <string>--exclude=Cache</string>…    </array>

The second one may be possible, but not without some escaping tricks. You're assuming the existence of a shell there; launchd isn't one. Have a separate .sh file for it.

[turtle]

Now that makes sense. It didn't occur to me that there was no shell assumed. Thank you for the example. I'm sure I can run with this now.