Github action that fails if no commit for 24 hours

Question

We are using github to backup configuration files automatically from our servers.

To check that the cron job is working correctly is there a way to have an action failing if there is a no commit for the last 24 hours ?

I don't think you can outrightly do that since GitHub action are event based. Maybe you could somehow compare the time — Frank nike, Sep 24 '22 at 10:56
... I think you have things reversed - have GitHub push to your server. It means everything is "backed up", and then you can also do nice things like require review or sign-offs, and pets you test the configs.... — Clockwork-Muse, Sep 24 '22 at 11:18
@Franknike , you can schedule actions with cron , i.e. run your test each night + check this https://stackoverflow.com/questions/60916931/github-action-does-the-if-have-an-else + https://stackoverflow.com/questions/18093871/how-can-i-do-division-with-variables-in-a-linux-shell — ic3, Sep 24 '22 at 15:54

score 1 · Answer 1 · 2022-09-24T11:42:31.593

1

You can use action with below structure

Github scheduled action, Uses cron syntax
1. Step actions/checkout step to checkout code
2. Custom step to get last commit date time e.q.
  1. git log -1 --format=%cd //Outputs: time of last commit
  2. git log -1 --format=%cr //Output: X days ago
3. Check this and fail the workflow, if condition met.

edited Sep 24 '22 at 11:42

answered Sep 24 '22 at 11:36

thanks, better git log -1 --format=%cd$ --date=raw | grep -o "^\w*\b" and date +%s to get the date in seconds since for doing the maths – ic3 Sep 24 '22 at 15:52

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Sep 26 '22 at 15:03

Eventually that the action to check we are using

name: CheckBackup

on:
  workflow_dispatch:
  schedule:
    - cron: '0 1 * * *'  # every day at 1:00am
jobs:
  build:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest

    steps:
      # Checks-out your repository under $GITHUB_WORKSPACE, so your job can access it
    - uses: actions/checkout@v3

    - name: Check dates difference
      run: |
        echo "Github last update : " +  `git log -1 --format=%cd$`
        echo "Now : " +  `date`
        let now=`date +%s`
        let backupTime=`git log -1 --format=%cd$ --date=raw | grep -o "^\w*\b"`
        deltaHours=$((now-backupTime))
        deltaHours=$((deltaHours/3600))
        if [ $deltaHours -ge 8 ]; then
             echo 'failed : ' + $deltaHours + ' hours'
             exit 1
        else     
             echo 'ok : ' + $deltaHours
             exit 0
        fi

Github action that fails if no commit for 24 hours

2 Answers2