What is the suggested way to cron-automate ZODB packs for a production Plone instance?

Question

Looking at plone.org to find a way to periodically pack my instance's ZODB I could only find http://plone.org/documentation/faq/how-do-i-pack-the-zodb that doesn't talk about automated packs, but just manually initiated ones.

I know I can simulate the manual pack with wget or curl, but I'd like to know if that is the best practice in use for production sites.

Answer 1

If you are using ZEO you can add the following to your Crontab to do this:

0 1 * * 6 <path-to-buildout>/bin/zeopack

If you don't want to do it manually, add this to your buildout.cfg and the crontab entry above will be added automatically when you run bin/buildout:

parts += crontab_zeopack

# pack your ZODB each Sunday morning and hence make it smaller and faster
[crontab_zeopack]
recipe = z3c.recipe.usercrontab
times = 0 1 * * 6
command = ${buildout:directory}/bin/zeopack

Answer 2

If you do not use ZEO:

curl -X POST -d 'days:float=0' http://admin:admin@localhost:8080/Control_Panel/Database/main/manage_pack

Answer 3

I do it like this (from https://raw.github.com/plock/pins/master/zeo):

[backup]
recipe = collective.recipe.backup

# Backup daily
[backups]
recipe = z3c.recipe.usercrontab
times = 0 0 * * * 
command = ${buildout:bin-directory}/bin/backup

# Pack once a month
[packups]
recipe = z3c.recipe.usercrontab
times = 0 0 1 * * 
command = ${buildout:bin-directory}/bin/zeopack