Monitoring Cron and Anacron Jobs with Telegram Bot

Introduction

In the world of Linux system administration, keeping an eye on your scheduled tasks is a crucial part of ensuring the smooth operation of your server. Cron and Anacron are essential tools for automating repetitive tasks, but how do you make sure they’re running as expected? This is where Telegram Bot comes into play. In this blog, we will guide you through setting up a Telegram bot to monitor your Cron and Anacron jobs. With this setup, you’ll receive real-time notifications directly to your Telegram chat, keeping you informed and in control. The blog contains AI generated text.

Prerequisites

Before we dive into the process, you’ll need the following:

• A Linux machine with Cron and Anacron jobs configured.
• A Telegram account.
• Basic knowledge of working with the Linux command line.

⚙️ Setting up a Telegram Bot

1. Create a Telegram Bot: Start by talking to the “BotFather” on Telegram to create your bot. Give it a name and receive your API token.
2. Get Your Chat ID: You’ll need your chat ID to send messages to your account. There are several methods to obtain it, such as using the “Chat ID Bot” on Telegram or sending a message to your new bot and running a script on your server to retrieve the chat ID.

📄 Writing the Monitoring Script

Let’s create a shell script that will check the status of your Cron and Anacron jobs. This script should use the Telegram Bot API to send notifications when something goes wrong. Here I have built the script to update my PC and antivirus and notify the command execution status.

Here’s an example of a sample monitoring script (update.sh):

#!/bin/bash
# Usage example
bot_token="API_TOKEN"
chat_id="YOUR_CHAT_ID"
message=$(printf "*** 
🕛 Current date and time: %s" "$current_datetime***"
)
# Update and upgrade packages
sudo apt-fast update
sudo apt-fast upgrade -y
if [ $? -eq 0 ]; then
    message+=$(printf "\n 📝 Update/Upgrade done successfully \n ")
else
    message+=$(printf "\n ❌ Update/Upgrade Failed\n")
fi
# Update Flatpak packages
flatpak update -y
if [ $? -eq 0 ]; then
    message+=$(printf "\n 📝 Flatpak Update done successfully \n")
else
    message+=$(printf "\n ❌ Flatpak Update Failed \n")
fi
# Update Snap packages
snap refresh
if [ $? -eq 0 ]; then
    message+=$(printf "\n 📝 Snap Update done successfully \n")
else
    message+=$(printf "\n ❌ Snap Update Failed ")
fi
# Remove unnecessary packages
sudo apt-fast autoremove -y
if [ $? -eq 0 ]; then
    message+=$(printf "\n 📝 autoremove done successfully ")
else
    message+=$(printf "\n ❌ autoremove Failed \n")
fi
# Update anti virus
sudo pkill -15 -x freshclam
sudo freshclam
if [ $? -eq 0 ]; then
    message+=$(printf "\n 📝 Antivirus updated successfully ")
else
    message+=$(printf "\n ❌ Antivirus update Failed ")
fi

send_telegram_message "$bot_token" "$chat_id" "$message"  

Schedule the Script

Use Cron or Anacron to schedule the execution of your monitoring script. You can set it to run at a specific interval or right after your critical tasks.

Script Overview :

It starts by setting up variables for a Telegram bot token (bot_token) and chat ID (chat_id). Constructs a message that will be sent as a Telegram notification. This message includes the current date and time. Performs system updates and upgrades using apt-fast, updates Flatpak packages, updates Snap packages, removes unnecessary packages, and updates the antivirus.

Download the script from here.

🧑‍💻 Testing and Troubleshooting

1. Test Your Setup: Run your script to ensure it sends notifications correctly. You can intentionally create errors in your Cron or Anacron jobs to see if you receive the expected notifications.
2. Troubleshooting: If you encounter issues, review your script and configuration to identify the problem. Telegram’s API documentation and error messages can be helpful.

Conclusion

Following these steps, you’ve created an efficient system for monitoring your Cron and Anacron jobs using the Telegram Bot API. With real-time notifications, you can quickly respond to any issues, ensuring the reliability and stability of your Linux server. This proactive system administration approach will help you easily maintain a smoothly running server.

Stay in control, stay informed, and make your Linux server administration more effective with Telegram Bot API-based job monitoring.

Please share if you have any suggestions. Thanks and Have a good day!