Starting python script in a virtual environment using cron

Question

I have a Raspberrypi 5 running bookworm and would like to run a python script at reboot. The script is in a virtual environment: /home/mipi/venv/Startup/Startup.py (where venv is the root directory for the virtual environment). So far I have been unsuccessful. The script runs flawlessly in Thonny.

Ownership and permissions on the script are:

-rwxrwx--- 1 mipi mipi 3382 Dec 8 16:44 Startup.py

Can someone please explain to me how to get the script to run on reboot?

When I put the following into crontab -e:

@reboot service /home/mipi/venv/bin/activate && /home/mipi/venv/Startup/Startup.py

The following is in the system log file:

Dec 09 08:31:20 mipi CRON[542]: pam_unix(cron:session): session opened for user mipi(uid=1000) by (uid=0)
 Dec 09 08:31:20 mipi CRON[637]: (mipi) CMD (source /home/mipi/venv/bin/python /home/mipi/venv/Startup/Startup.py)
 Dec 09 08:31:20 mipi CRON[542]: (CRON) info (No MTA installed, discarding output)
 Dec 09 08:31:20 mipi CRON[542]: pam_unix(cron:session): session closed for user mipi

When I enter the following in crontab -e:

@reboot /usr/bin/sleep 30 source /home/mipi/venv/bin/python /home/mipi/venv/Startup/Startup.py >/dev/null 2>&1

The following is in the log file:

Dec 09 09:02:31 mipi CRON[545]: pam_unix(cron:session): session opened for user mipi(uid=1000) by (uid=0)
Dec 09 09:02:31 mipi CRON[637]: (mipi) CMD (/usr/bin/sleep 30 source /home/mipi/venv/bin/python /home/mipi/venv/Startup/Start>
Dec 09 09:02:31 mipi CRON[545]: pam_unix(cron:session): session closed for user mipi

I tried entering the following in sudo crontab -e:

@reboot source /home/mipi/venv/bin/activate && /home/mipi/venv/Startup/Startup.py

And this is what was in the log file:

Dec 09 09:33:57 mipi CRON[604]: (root) CMD (source /home/mipi/venv/bin/activate && /home/mipi/venv/Startup/Startup.py)
Dec 09 09:33:57 mipi CRON[605]: (mipi) CMD (/usr/bin/sleep 30 source /home/mipi/venv/bin/python /home/mipi/venv/Startup/Startup.py >/dev>
Dec 09 09:33:57 mipi CRON[538]: (CRON) info (No MTA installed, discarding output)
Dec 09 09:33:57 mipi CRON[538]: pam_unix(cron:session): session closed for user root
Dec 09 09:33:57 mipi CRON[539]: pam_unix(cron:session): session closed for user mipi

• Milliways: See How a Python venv works in raspberrypi.stackexchange.com/a/149498/8697

Answer 1

Upon further digging, I found this works:

/home/mipi/venv/bin/python /home/mipi/Startup/Startup.py