One of the most requested features is now here! The new starts_at field allows you to schedule jobs to begin execution at a specific date and time. This is perfect for one-time events, maintenance windows, or any scenario where you need precise control over when a job becomes active.
{
"name": "maintenance-job",
"schedule": "@daily",
"starts_at": "2025-12-20T02:00:00Z",
"executor": "shell",
"executor_config": {
"command": "maintenance.sh"
}
}
The UI has been updated to support this new field, making it easy to configure start times directly from the dashboard.
Gain better control during maintenance windows or system updates with the new API endpoints to pause and unpause job submissions. When paused, no new jobs will be accepted, but existing scheduled jobs continue to run normally.
# Pause new job submissions
curl -X POST http://dkron-server:8080/v1/pause
# Resume job submissions
curl -X POST http://dkron-server:8080/v1/unpause
Prevent runaway processes from consuming all system resources! You can now set memory limits for shell executor jobs using the new memory_limit configuration option. This helps ensure system stability and predictable resource usage.
{
"executor": "shell",
"executor_config": {
"command": "data-processing.sh",
"memory_limit": "512m"
}
}
Job execution metrics are now tracked using the go-metrics package, providing better insights into your job performance. Monitor execution times, success rates, and system health with greater precision.
The "forbid" concurrency policy now correctly survives node restarts. Previously, jobs with concurrency set to "forbid" could incorrectly block after a node restart. This fix ensures your concurrency policies work reliably across the entire cluster lifecycle.
Dkron v4.0.9 is designed to be a straightforward upgrade from v4.0.8. As always, we recommend:
We continue to invest in making Dkron the most reliable and feature-rich distributed job scheduler. Future releases will focus on:
Join our growing community:
Thank you to all our contributors who made this release possible, especially @NAlexandrov for the starts_at feature and @indeedhat for the dependent_jobs fix!
Happy scheduling!
The Dkron Team
]]>Dkron Pro 4.0 comes packed with new features and improvements, including:
Dkron Pro 4.0 introduces a robust ACL system that allows you to control access to your Dkron Pro resources. You can define roles and permissions, assign users to roles, and restrict access to specific jobs, agents, and other resources. This ensures that your Dkron Pro environment is secure and compliant with your organization's security policies.
Read the documentation on ACL system
The new Dkron Pro UI is designed to be more intuitive and user-friendly. We've updated to the latest version of React Admin, bringing a modern design, improved navigation, and enhanced functionality. You can now easily manage your jobs, monitor execution, and gain insights into your Dkron Pro environment with just a few clicks. We've also added dark mode and other small improvements to enhance your experience.
We've completely revamped our documentation to make it easier for you to get started with Dkron Pro and find the information you need. The documentation includes detailed guides, examples, and API references.
Download Dkron Pro 4.0 today and experience the benefits of enhanced security, usability, and documentation.
We hope you enjoy Dkron Pro 4.0! If you have any questions or feedback, please don't hesitate to contact us.
Thank you for your continued support!
The Dkron Team
]]>We are so happy because this release brings maturity to the system, meaning it's becoming adult and fully featured. On one side, we're leaving behind the old UI; it's not included anymore in this version, and we've bumped the UI to React Admin v5, meaning that it's crisper, more responsive, and better looking than ever.
The basic usage is better covered than ever by including the shell and the HTTP executors inside the main binary, so now with just the single Dkron binary, it packs the basic functionality.
Regarding security, this is the big announcement for Pro v4: the completely new and rebuilt from the ground-up ACL system. We don't want to hide it; it's heavily inspired by the ACL system in the popular Hashicorp's Nomad, but with a different flavour. Check the docs and follow the tutorial on how to use it; it's easy.
Try it for free: just download and install Dkron Pro v4.0.0-beta using your preferred method, docker image, packages, or binary build. Try it and let us know how it feels.
Thank you!
]]>We are excited to announce the release of Dkron v4.0.0-beta1, which comes with major improvements and better performance. If you are using Dkron for distributed cron jobs, now is the perfect time to give the beta a try!
Stay tunned to upcoming beta releases here https://github.com/distribworks/dkron/releases
The new release includes the ability to run Dkron as a single binary, as it embeds the shell plugin. This makes it even easier and faster to get started with Dkron for simple cron job management, especially for those who only need to run shell jobs.
We are thrilled to announce the release of a new Docker light image for Dkron v4.0.0-beta1. This image contains only the main Dkron binary with the built-in shell plugin and no other plugins, all in a single file. If you're looking for a lean and efficient way to run Dkron, this is it! You can find the image on Docker Hub.
As this is a beta release, we encourage users to report any issues they encounter to help us make the final release even better. Your feedback is essential in ensuring that the final release meets your expectations.
The release includes a substantial list of changes, including the bumping of various dependencies, clean up in CI, handling of IP changes, removal of the old UI, and many more improvements and fixes. You can view the full changelog here.
We are looking forward to your feedback on this beta release, and we hope that Dkron v4.0 Beta will bring added value and convenience to your cron job management.
Happy scheduling! 🚀🎉
]]>Our brand new web site designed and implemented by https://github.com/Macxim, comes with a brand new look, better content structure, better documentation a new blog section and the new API navigator.
This marks the start of a new and better product design, more focused on the UX, easy of use and more documentation for Dkron.
We hope you like it as much as we do. ❤️
Our goal is to provide a very reliable way of running your cron jobs, we share that vision with the people behind Cronitor. Dkron is very reliable but sometimes a very bad event can bring your cluster down to its knees. To provide multiple options to monitor Dkron, I'm happy to introduce a new way to monitor your job executions using Cronitor service.
Cronitor is tightly integrated with Dkron, it will notify the details of every execution and Cronitor can offer multiple channels for alerting you in case something goes wrong.
Check the service https://cronitor.io/ and follow the integration guide in the docs to set up your Dkron-Cronitor integration.
We have migrated API docs from Swagger 2 spec to OpenAPI 3 format. Check the new and better API docs and you can download the new OpenAPI spec too.
The new look of Dkron will pave the road for the upcoming v4 release. We have really interesting features almost ready for the new version, some of them are:
We think this will open Dkron to be used for new use cases that where not possible before.
We are very happy of giving Dkron a well deserved new face to the world and also to keep integrating with new services we love to be able to offer the best product we can for this specific -and niche- market.
We think there's a gap in Job schedulers for the rest-of-us that is currently improving, but still very needed of cost-effective and easy to operate solutions like Dkron for small-mid start-ups and for specific needs in bigger companies.
We're always open to our users feedback so feel free to contact us if you have any suggestion.
]]>This release brings a big internal refactor in the job execution engine, incorporating breaking changes but ensuring no more missing executions.
Refactored the job execution engine for proper synchronization of executions, no more missing executions under normal conditions, and if there is one, Dkron will report the issue clearly in the logs.
New node targeting algorithm, transparent for the user.
Change the notification JS code to a pop-up like system that provides better comfort in using the UI, previously causing some weird effects on certain job operations like Run, Toggle, and Delete.
This update brings no public API changes, and no changes in storage format so your upgrade path should be easy if you follow the rolling upgrade notes.
Download and install from here
Thank you to all my Dkron Pro customers for ensuring the long-term support and maintenance of Dkron. Support OSS software and your infrastructure vendors so we can support you!
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