Raspberry Pi

cronbase runs well on a Raspberry Pi — it's a natural fit for a home server or homelab cron scheduler. This guide covers a headless setup with systemd for automatic startup.

Requirements

• Raspberry Pi 2 or later (armv7 / arm64)
• Raspberry Pi OS (Bookworm or Bullseye), 64-bit recommended
• Internet access for installation

Installation

Option 1: Docker (recommended)

Docker is the easiest path and handles all architecture concerns automatically.

# Install Docker
curl -fsSL https://get.docker.com | sh
sudo usermod -aG docker $USER
newgrp docker

# Run cronbase
docker run -d \
  --name cronbase \
  --restart unless-stopped \
  -p 7433:7433 \
  -v cronbase-data:/data \
  ghcr.io/paperkite-hq/cronbase

The dashboard is available at http://<pi-ip>:7433.

Option 2: Bun (native)

Bun supports ARM64 natively on 64-bit Raspberry Pi OS:

curl -fsSL https://bun.sh/install | bash
source ~/.bashrc

Then install cronbase:

git clone https://github.com/paperkite-hq/cronbase.git
cd cronbase
bun install
bun run build

Create a symlink so cronbase is available on $PATH:

sudo ln -s /home/pi/cronbase/node_modules/.bin/cronbase /usr/local/bin/cronbase

32-bit OS: Bun requires 64-bit. If you're on 32-bit Raspberry Pi OS, use the Docker option instead.

Systemd service

Create a systemd unit to start cronbase automatically on boot.

With Docker

sudo nano /etc/systemd/system/cronbase.service

[Unit]
Description=cronbase job scheduler
Requires=docker.service
After=docker.service

[Service]
Restart=always
ExecStart=/usr/bin/docker start -a cronbase
ExecStop=/usr/bin/docker stop cronbase

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

With Bun (native)

sudo nano /etc/systemd/system/cronbase.service

[Unit]
Description=cronbase job scheduler
After=network.target

[Service]
Type=simple
User=pi
WorkingDirectory=/home/pi/cronbase
ExecStart=/home/pi/.bun/bin/bun run src/cli.ts start \
  --db /var/lib/cronbase/cronbase.db \
  --config /etc/cronbase/cronbase.yaml
Restart=on-failure
RestartSec=5
Environment=CRONBASE_LOG_LEVEL=warn
Environment=CRONBASE_LOG_FORMAT=json

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

Enable and start:

sudo mkdir -p /var/lib/cronbase /etc/cronbase
sudo chown pi:pi /var/lib/cronbase
sudo systemctl daemon-reload
sudo systemctl enable cronbase
sudo systemctl start cronbase

Check status:

sudo systemctl status cronbase
journalctl -u cronbase -f

Storage considerations

Raspberry Pi uses an SD card by default. SQLite generates frequent small writes, which can wear out SD cards over months.

Mount the database on a USB drive or SSD:

# Format and mount a USB drive
sudo mkfs.ext4 /dev/sda1
sudo mkdir /mnt/usb
echo '/dev/sda1 /mnt/usb ext4 defaults,noatime 0 2' | sudo tee -a /etc/fstab
sudo mount -a
sudo mkdir /mnt/usb/cronbase
sudo chown pi:pi /mnt/usb/cronbase

Then point cronbase at the external path:

cronbase start --db /mnt/usb/cronbase/cronbase.db

Or with Docker:

docker run -d \
  --name cronbase \
  --restart unless-stopped \
  -p 7433:7433 \
  -v /mnt/usb/cronbase:/data \
  ghcr.io/paperkite-hq/cronbase

Enable noatime on the SD card partition to reduce unnecessary writes to the filesystem metadata:

# In /etc/fstab, add noatime to the root partition options
PARTUUID=xxxx  /  ext4  defaults,noatime  0  1

Accessing the dashboard remotely

The dashboard listens on all interfaces by default. Access it from another machine on the same network:

http://192.168.1.xxx:7433

Secure it with an API token when the Pi is accessible on your home network:

# Set on the Pi
export CRONBASE_API_TOKEN=your-secret-token
cronbase start

Then include the token when making API requests:

curl -H "Authorization: Bearer your-secret-token" http://192.168.1.xxx:7433/api/jobs

For remote access over the internet, use a reverse proxy with TLS (nginx, Caddy) or keep it behind a VPN.

Config file

Place your job definitions in /etc/cronbase/cronbase.yaml:

jobs:
  - name: backup-home
    schedule: "0 3 * * *"
    command: tar -czf /mnt/usb/backups/home-$(date +%Y%m%d).tar.gz /home/pi
    timeout: 600
    description: Nightly home directory backup

  - name: update-system
    schedule: "0 4 * * 0"
    command: apt-get update && apt-get upgrade -y
    timeout: 1800
    description: Weekly system updates

Troubleshooting

Bun not found after install:

echo 'export PATH="$HOME/.bun/bin:$PATH"' >> ~/.bashrc
source ~/.bashrc

Dashboard not reachable from other devices:

Check the Pi's firewall isn't blocking port 7433:

sudo ufw allow 7433/tcp

Out of memory:

Raspberry Pi models with 512 MB RAM may struggle under heavy job loads. Reduce log verbosity:

CRONBASE_LOG_LEVEL=error cronbase start