Install Upgrade

Getting started

This is a quick guide to installing a standalone instance of BeyondCron on a single server.

Upgrading BeyondCron

This is a quick guide to upgrading BeyondCron.

Requirements

  • Unix operating system with at least:
    • 1 CPU
    • 1 GB Memory
    • 500GB of free disk
  • Java 8 or 11
  • git 1.7 or greater
  • ssh
  • sudo
Optional
  • SQL database, AWS DynamoDB or ETCD for configuration management
  • SQL database or AWS DynamoDB/S3 for job execution logging

1 Install BeyondCron

Debian RedHat zip
  1. install BeyondCron and start daemons

root# cd /tmp
root# wget https://beyondcron.com/downloads/beyondcron_4.230317.0_all.deb
root# dpkg -i beyondcron_4.230317.0_all.deb

  1. install BeyondCron packaging signature

root# cd /tmp
root# wget https://beyondcron.com/downloads/beyondcron_pub.asc
root# rpm --import beyondcron_pub.asc

  1. install BeyondCron and start daemons

root# wget https://beyondcron.com/downloads/beyondcron-4.230317.0-0.noarch.rpm
root# rpm -i beyondcron-4.230317.0-0.noarch.rpm

The installation will create the following:

  • operating system users:
    bc-daemon
    bc-web
  • application directory /opt/beyondcron containing bc-agent, bc-cli, bc-server & bc-web.
  • service environment files:
    /etc/bc-agent.conf
    /etc/bc-server.conf
    /etc/bc-web.conf
  • data directory /var/bc-server/data
  • log4j2 configuration files:
    /var/bc-agent/log4j.yaml
    /var/bc-server/log4j.yaml
    /var/bc-web/log4j.yaml
  • log files on init systems:
    /var/log/bc-agent.log
    /var/log/bc-server.log
    /var/log/bc-web.log

It will also register and start the services bc-agent, bc-server & bc-web.

initd systemd

if the package cannot find a version of Java 8 or 11 already installed, the installation will fail.

If you wish to run BeyondCron under your own user id:

  1. download BeyondCron distribution file

username% cd /install/directory/parent
username% wget https://beyondcron.com/downloads/beyondcron-4.230317.0.zip
username% unzip beyondcron-4.230317.0.zip

  1. start bc-server

username% ./beyondcron/bin/bc-server &

2021-09-23T10:26:25,630 [main] INFO com.beyondcron.server.App – bc-server 4.230317.0
…

  1. start bc-agent

username% ./beyondcron/bin/bc-agent &

2021-09-23T10:26:25,630 [main] INFO com.beyondcron.agent.App – bc-agent 4.230317.0
…

  1. start bc-web

username% ./beyondcron/bin/bc-web &

2021-09-23T10:26:25,630 [main] INFO com.beyondcron.web.App – bc-web 4.230317.0
…

2 Configure ssh

The BeyondCron user bc-daemon requires passwordless ssh access to each server on which BeyondCron is running, and every server on which jobs are executed as follows:

Source Destination Source user Destination user
BeyondCron server BeyondCron server bc-daemon bc-daemon
BeyondCron server job host bc-daemon job user

In order to execute jobs on other servers, BeyondCron requires that you have passwordless ssh access to those servers.

3 Configure sudo

bc-agent executes jobs locally via sudo. As such you must allow bc-daemon on each server where Beyondcron is installed to sudo to job users.

A minimal sudo entry to allow bc-agent to execute commands for any user except root, is:

bc-daemon ALL=(ALL,!root) NOPASSWD: ALL

You can add this entry to /etc/sudoers, or if the directory /etc/sudoers.d exists, to a BeyondCron specific sudoers file such as /etc/sudoers.d/90-beyondcron.

If you wish to allow bc-agent to execute commands as root, the safest option is to explicitly define each command that you wish to allow bc-agent to execute. e.g.

bc-daemon ALL=(ALL,!root) NOPASSWD: ALL, (root) /usr/bin/tee,/sbin/reboot

bc-agent uses the tee command to save the command output, so should always be included in the commands that bc-agent can sudo to when allowing bc-agent to execute commands as root.

If you wish BeyondCron to execute jobs as users other than your own user id, it is recommended to install BeyondCron as a service using either the Debian or RedHat packages.

4 Set up a Beyondcron admin user

Unix BeyondCron

If the host operating system is configured to use LDAP for user authentication, BeyondCron can be configured to authenticate against LDAP.

To designate yourself as a BeyondCron adminstrator in your LDAP director service:

  1. create the group bc_admin
  1. add yourself to the new bc_admin group.
  1. enable the Unix user service within BeyondCron

root# sudo -u bc-daemon /usr/local/bin/bc-cli --admin
BeyondCron % config set beyondcron.user.service Unix
BeyondCron % user service reload

Confirm that the user service is connected and can see the LDAP users

BeyondCron % user service show

User service Unix – connected 14:43:58 23/05/2020

BeyondCron % user list

User Description ------ ------------- bsmyth William Smyth jsmith John Smith ...

BeyondCron % exit

  1. confirm that you can login to BeyondCron using bc-cli or bc-web

If host operating system is not using LDAP use BeyondCrons default internal user service.

To create yourself as a BeyondCron adminstrator:

  1. create an admin user within Beyondcron using bc-cli

root# sudo -u bc-daemon /usr/local/bin/bc-cli --admin
BeyondCron % user add username
BeyondCron % user password username secret
BeyondCron % user role add username admin
BeyondCron % exit

  1. confirm that you can login to BeyondCron using bc-cli or bc-web

username% /usr/local/bin/bc-cli

bc-cli

username’s password: ••••••••

BeyondCron %

see bc-server user service Unix for additional configuration details.

the Unix service cannot be used when the host operating system is using /etc/passwd & /etc/shadow.

see commands user overview for additional user configuration details.

4 Set yourself up as a BeyondCron admin user

  1. create a BeyondCron user with the same name as your Unix user

username% /usr/local/bin/bc-cli --admin
BeyondCron % user add username
BeyondCron % user password username secret
BeyondCron % user role add username admin
BeyondCron % exit

  1. confirm that you can login to BeyondCron using bc-cli or bc-web

username% /usr/local/bin/bc-cli

bc-cli

username’s password: ••••••••

BeyondCron %

5 Purchase a license

Without a license, BeyondCron will run unrestricted for 1 month, and afterwards will be limited to 5 defined jobs running on a single bc-server. If you wish to define more than 5 jobs or run bc-server in a clustered configuration, please purchase a license as follows:

  1. using bc-cli or bc-web terminal, get the server license request url:

BeyondCron % server license request

Store URL: https://example.com/store/?instance=0:7fdf823b&jobs=20&servers=1&example

If executed within the bc-web terminal, the command output will be a link similar the to following:

Store URL: http://example.com/store/

  1. copy and paste the url into your web browser.

Next steps

see the Knowledge base

1 Upgrade BeyondCron

  1. upgrade BeyondCron

root# cd /tmp
root# wget https://beyondcron.com/downloads/beyondcron_4.230317.0_all.deb
root# dpkg -i beyondcron_4.230317.0_all.deb

root# cd /tmp
root# wget https://beyondcron.com/downloads/beyondcron-4.230317.0-0.noarch.rpm
root# rpm -U beyondcron-4.230317.0-0.noarch.rpm

username% cd /install/directory/parent
username% wget https://beyondcron.com/downloads/beyondcron-4.230317.0.zip
username% unzip beyondcron-4.230317.0.zip

  1. restart bc-server

username% pkill bc-server
username% ./beyondcron/bin/bc-server &

2021-09-23T10:26:25,630 [main] INFO com.beyondcron.server.App – bc-server 4.230317.0
…

  1. restart bc-agent

username% pkill bc-agent
username% ./beyondcron/bin/bc-agent &

2021-09-23T10:26:25,630 [main] INFO com.beyondcron.agent.App – bc-agent 4.230317.0
…

  1. restart bc-web

username% pkill bc-web
username% ./beyondcron/bin/bc-web &

2021-09-23T10:26:25,630 [main] INFO com.beyondcron.web.App – bc-web 4.230317.0
…