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Date:      Thu, 17 Aug 2000 11:13:20 +0200
From:      Willem Brown <willem@brwn.org>
To:        Nathan Vidican <webmaster@wmptl.com>
Cc:        questions@freebsd.org
Subject:   Re: /etc/crontab not work?
Message-ID:  <20000817111319.B40744@snoopy.brwn.org>
In-Reply-To: <399A89CC.AA704AD6@wmptl.com>; from webmaster@wmptl.com on Wed, Aug 16, 2000 at 08:32:12AM -0400
References:  <399A89CC.AA704AD6@wmptl.com>

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Hi,

On Wed, Aug 16, 2000 at 08:32:12AM -0400, Nathan Vidican wrote:
> I have two cron jobs which won't seem to run. If I run the exact same
> commands from a shell script, then everything goes well. There are no
> errors reported, nothing get's logged, yet nothing gets done either. The
> two entries in question are as follows:
> 
> # run Perl script which backs up our databases
> # permissions set to 755, runs if user types: /etc/database-backup
> # must be run as root, should run nightly at or around 8:00pm
> 10      20       *       *       *       root    /etc/database-backup
> 2>&1 | sendmail garbage

What happens if you run it like this?

10      20       *       *       *       root    /usr/bin/perl /etc/database-backup 2>&1 | sendmail garbage

Cron uses /bin/sh to execute the script like this.

/bin/sh script

This will ignore whatever is on the first line the script, #!/usr/bin/perl,
and since it is not a valid bourne shell script it will most likely not work.

I based this on my interpretation of the following from the crontab(5) man
page, which means that I might be wrong.

     The entire command portion of the line, up to a newline or % char-
     acter, will be executed by /bin/sh or by the shell specified in the SHELL
     variable of the cronfile.

> 
> # run Perl script which backs up our databases
> # permissions set to 755, runs if user types: /etc/website-backup
> # must be run as root, should run Saturday nights at or around 8:30pm
> 30      20      *       *       6       root    /etc/website-backup 2>&1
> | sendm
> ail garbage
> 
> If I create a shell script with the following:
> 
> #!/bin/sh
> 
> /etc/database-backup 2>&1 | sendmail garbage
> /etc/website-backup 2>&1 | sendmail garbage
> 
> chmod 755 <script> 
> Then run said script, and everything goes fine. I've tried restarting
> cron, but it still doesn't seem to do anything. Is there something
> obvious I'm missing here? Does /etc/crontab not work? Should I usr
> /var/cron/tabs/root instead?
> 
> -- 
> Nathan Vidican
> webmaster@wmptl.com
> Windsor Match Plate & Tool Ltd.
> http://www.wmptl.com/
> 
> 
> To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org
> with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message
> 

Best Regards
Willem Brown
-- 
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