I am planning out a script that I would like to write that will check a website everyday at midnight and do what is needed based off the users input. I will be posting this script online so other people can use it.
However, I want the script to be able to continue running even when the users computer is off. Is there some place (I/the user) can host the script so that even when I/they turn off their computer it continues to run?
The immediate idea that comes to my head or hosting it on a server of some sort. Is that possible?
I have also been reading about cron. However, it appears that will stop working after the user has turned off their computer.
Any tips or advice is appreciated.
Yes, cron stops running when you turn off the computer. Everything stops running when there is no power. One option for persistent computing is to run a EC2 instance on Amazon Web Services. There is one instance type that is free (up to a point I believe). Other cloud computing services such as MS Azure are also an option.