Shell script wont run in cron as root - linux

I have the following code in my root cron file:
PATH=/opt/someApp/bin:/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/sbin:/bin
45 12 * * * /home/ben/MetaBackup/metabackup.sh 2>&1 >/dev/null | slacktee.sh -t "Metabase Backup Error" -a "danger"
slacktee.sh is located in /usr/local/bin and /usr/bin however when i run this metabackup.sh runs ok but slacktee.sh does not. I have tried absolute location for slacktee also but that did not work. The more confusing thing is i put the exact same lines in my user crontab and slacktee works fine. What am i doing wrong? Or is this an issue with slacktee that i need to raise there?
EDIT:
slacktee is available here: https://github.com/course-hero/slacktee

You are redirecting stdout and stderr of metabackup.sh to /dev/null , so I think really no output is piped to slacktee.sh and its standard input is empty.
Try removing > /dev/null

I agree with gile !
If there is no output, slacktee won't be able to print anything.
If it's still not working, try to load profile in your command :
45 12 * * * . ~/.profile;/home/ben/MetaBackup/metabackup.sh 2>&1 | slacktee.sh -t "Metabase Backup Error" -a "danger"
Of course, adapt the file depending on if you are on bash or ksh (.profile or .bash_profile)
Do not forget the ". " in front of your .profile file.
Hope it will help.

Most likely, cron is not finding slacktee.sh in its path. You're setting the PATH for the first command, but that setting does not apply to the command after the pipe.
Try using the full path to slacktree:
... | /usr/local/bin/slacktee.sh -t "Metabase Backup Error" -a "danger"

Related

I want not to save the logs that are "warning" in the log crontab

I want not to save the logs that are "warning" in the log file that the crontab creates, I only want the "error" messages, does anyone know how I can exclude these messages?
I have tried doing a grep -v but it doesn't work:
45 5 * * * /home/username/barc/backupsql.sh 2>&1 | grep -v 'Warning: Using a password on the command line interface can be insecure.'
Thanks in advance for anyone trying to help me.
Crontab lets you execute 1 scheduled command/script at a time.
Piping the output of your script to Grep command won't work. Furthermore, crontab by default redirects output to dev/null, therefore you won't see the output unless you save it to a file.
I suggest something like this:
Edit your script to redirect it's output to a file with your grep command. For example by adding
DATE=$(date +"%m_%d_%Y")
some command | grep -v Warning >> /tmp/$DATE.log # Here
Edit your Cron job to execute the script every day like you did, removing everything after the pipe:
45 5 * * * /home/username/barc/backupsql.sh
In order to monitor the output you could use tail command as follows:
tail -f /tmp/$DATE.log

What is the problem with cron privileges?

When I run the BASH script from the command line, it is executed.
When I try to run it as a cron task, it fails. By an exception method, I found a problem. It consists in the fact that the "which iptables" command returns an empty string. This happens with all the programs that I try to find in the "/sbin" directory.
Example:
# crontab -e
* * * * * /root/test.sh >> /root/test.log 2>&1
test.sh
#!/bin/bash
IPT=$(which iptables);
echo ${IPT} >> /root/test.log
But in test.log written empty string.
Tested on Ubuntu 16.04 and Debian 8.
It's not related to privileges.
which looks for the command in $PATH. cron scripts have a limited path, that doesn't include iptables, so it's not found.
$ /usr/bin/which iptables
/sbin/iptables
$ PATH=/bin:/usr/bin /usr/bin/which iptables
$ echo $?
1
When you have a limited path, it will return a empty string (on my other machine it reports that no iptables in (/usr/bin:/bin) so YMMV) and exit with non-zero code.
if you do something like echo $PATH >> /root/test.log you will see that cron has a path with just /usr/bin and /bin
You have to either set the $PATH to contain the iptables location, or use full path when calling iptables

Cron not executing the shell script + Linux [duplicate]

I have a script that checks if the PPTP VPN is running, and if not it reconnects the PPTP VPN. When I run the script manually it executes fine, but when I make a cron job, it's not running.
* * * * * /bin/bash /var/scripts/vpn-check.sh
Here is the script:
#!/bin/sh
/bin/ping -c3 192.168.17.27 > /tmp/pingreport
result=`grep "0 received" /tmp/pingreport`
truncresult="`echo "$result" | sed 's/^\(.................................\).*$$'`"
if [[ $truncresult == "3 packets transmitted, 0 received" ]]; then
/usr/sbin/pppd call home
fi
finally i found a solution ... instead of entering the cronjob with
crontab -e
i needed to edit the crontab file directly
nano /etc/crontab
adding e.g. something like
*/5 * * * * root /bin/bash /var/scripts/vpn-check.sh
and its fine now!
Thank you all for your help ... hope my solution will help other people as well.
After a long time getting errors, I just did this:
SHELL=/bin/bash
PATH=/bin:/sbin:/usr/bin:/usr/sbin
* * * * * /bin/bash /home/joaovitordeon/Documentos/test.sh
Where test.sh contains:
#!/bin/bash
/usr/bin/python3 /home/joaovitordeon/Documentos/test.py;
In my case, the issue was that the script wasn't marked as executable. To make sure it is, run the following command:
chmod +x your_script.sh
If you're positive the script runs outside of cron, execute
printf "SHELL=$SHELL\nPATH=$PATH\n* * * * * /bin/bash /var/scripts/vpn-check.sh\n"
Do crontab -e for whichever crontab you're using and replace it with output of the above command. This should mirror most of your environment in case there is some missing path issue or something else. Also check logs for any errors it's getting.
Though it definitly looks like the script has an error or you messed something up when copying it here
sed: -e expression #1, char 44: unterminated `s' command
./bad.sh: 5: ./bad.sh: [[: not found
Simple alternate script
#!/bin/bash
if [[ $(ping -c3 192.168.17.27) == *"0 received"* ]]; then
/usr/sbin/pppd call home
fi
Your script can be corrected and simplified like this:
#!/bin/sh
log=/tmp/vpn-check.log
{ date; ping -c3 192.168.17.27; } > $log
if grep -q '0 received' $log; then
/usr/sbin/pppd call home >>$log 2>&1
fi
Through our discussion in comments we confirmed that the script itself works, but pppd doesn't, when running from cron. This is because something must be different in an interactive shell like your terminal window, and in cron. This kind of problem is very common by the way.
The first thing to do is try to remember what configuration is necessary for pppd. I don't use it so I don't know. Maybe you need to set some environment variables? In which case most probably you set something in a startup file, like .bashrc, which is usually not used in a non-interactive shell, and would explain why pppd doesn't work.
The second thing is to check the logs of pppd. If you cannot find the logs easily, look into its man page, and it's configuration files, and try to find the logs, or how to make it log. Based on the logs, you should be able to find what is missing when running in cron, and resolve your problem.
Was having a similar problem that was resolved when a sh was put before the command in crontab
This did not work :
#reboot ~myhome/mycommand >/tmp/logfile 2>&1
This did :
#reboot sh ~myhome/mycommand >/tmp/logfile 2>&1
my case:
crontab -e
then adding the line:
* * * * * ( cd /directory/of/script/ && /bin/sh /directory/of/script/scriptItself.sh )
in fact, if I added "root" as per the user, it thought "root" was a command, and it didn't work.
As a complement of other's answers, didn't you forget the username in your crontab script ?
Try this :
* * * * * root /bin/bash /var/scripts/vpn-check.sh
EDIT
Here is a patch of your code
#!/bin/sh
/bin/ping -c3 192.168.17.27 > /tmp/pingreport
result=`grep "0 received" /tmp/pingreport`
truncresult=`echo "$result" | /bin/sed 's/^\(.................................\).*$/\1/'`
if [[ $truncresult == "3 packets transmitted, 0 received" ]]; then
/usr/sbin/pppd call home
fi
In my case, it could be solved by using this:
* * * * * root ( cd /directory/of/script/ && /directory/of/script/scriptItself.sh )
I used some ./folder/-references in the script, which didn't work.
The problem statement is script is getting executed when run manually in the shell but when run through cron, it gives "java: command not found" error -
Please try below 2 options and it should fix the issue -
Ensure the script is executable .If it's not, execute below -
chmod a+x your_script_name.sh
The cron job doesn’t run with the same user with which you are executing the script manually - so it doesn't have access to the same $PATH variable as your user which means it can't locate the Java executable to execute the commands in the script. We should first fetch the value of PATH variable as below and then set it(export) in the script -
echo $PATH can be used to fetch the value of PATH variable.
and your script can be modified as below - Please see second line starting with export
#!/bin/sh
export PATH=<provide the value of echo $PATH>
/bin/ping -c3 192.168.17.27 > /tmp/pingreport
result=`grep "0 received" /tmp/pingreport`
truncresult="`echo "$result" | sed 's/^\(.................................\).*$$'`"
if [[ $truncresult == "3 packets transmitted, 0 received" ]]; then
/usr/sbin/pppd call home
fi
First of all, check if cron service is running. You know the first question of the IT helpdesk: "Is the PC plugged in?".
For me, this was happening because the cronjob was executing from /root directory but my shell script (a script to pull the latest code from GitHub and run the tests) were in a different directory. So, I had to edit my script to have a cd to my scripts folder. My debug steps were
Verified that my script run independent of cron job
Checked /var/log/cron to see if the cron jobs are running. Verified that the job is running at the intended time
Added an echo command to the script to log the start and end times to a file. Verified that those were getting logged but not the actual commands
Logged the result of pwd to the same file and saw that the commands were getting executed from /root
Tried adding a cd to my script directory as the first line in the script. When the cron job kicked off this time, the script got executed just like in step 1.
it was timezone in my case. I scheduled cron with my local time but server has different timezone and it does not run at all. so make sure your server has same time by date cmd
first run command env > env.tmp
then run cat env.tmp
copy PATH=.................. Full line and paste into crontab -e, line before your cronjobs.
try this
/home/your site folder name/public_html/gistfile1.sh
set cron path like above

Write from Shellscript to file when running the script from crontab

What I am trying and tried to do:
I've written a Shellscript which should write some logs into a logfile. Something like:
echo "downloaded header" >> log
I also tried with cat instead of echo and I've given full permissions to the log so it should be accessible for anyone. If I start the script from the command line everything works fine and the entries are made as expected.
It didn't matter if I gave the full path to the logfile or not, I tried both.
The Problem:
If I run the script from crontab and yes It has to work with crontab, nothing is written into my log. So the echo "xy" >> log doesn't work, neither does the cat.
Any Ideas? Thanks in advance.
try this solution:
cat cronjob
* * * * * echo "downloaded header" >> /path/to/log
Then:
chmod +x cronjob
chmod +x script.sh
/etc/init.d/crond start #redhat based servers like centos
/etc/init.d/cron start #debian based servers like ubuntu
crontab cronjob
Try redirecting to the log file with full path
echo "downloaded header" >> $HOME/Log_dir/log ## just an example

Shell script to log server checks runs manually, but not from cron

I'm using a basic shell script to log the results of top, netstat, ps and free every minute.
This is the script:
/scripts/logtop:
TERM=vt100
export TERM
time=$(date)
min=${time:14:2}
top -b -n 1 > /var/log/systemCheckLogs/$min
netstat -an >> /var/log/systemCheckLogs/$min
ps aux >> /var/log/systemCheckLogs/$min
free >> /var/log/systemCheckLogs/$min
echo "Message Content: $min" | mail -s "Ran System Check script" email#domain.com
exit 0
When I run this script directly it works fine. It creates the files and puts them in /var/log/systemCheckLogs/ and then sends me an email.
I can't, however, get it to work when trying to get cron to do it every minute.
I tried putting it in /var/spool/cron/root like so:
* * * * * /scripts/logtop > /dev/null 2>&1
and it never executes
I also tried putting it in /var/spool/cron/myservername and also like so:
* * * * * /scripts/logtop > /dev/null 2>&1
it'll run every minute, but nothing gets created in systemCheckLogs.
Is there a reason it works when I run it but not when cron runs it?
Also, here's what the permissions look like:
-rwxrwxrwx 1 root root 326 Jul 21 01:53 logtop
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 Jul 21 01:51 systemCheckLogs
Normally crontabs are kept in "/var/spool/cron/crontabs/". Also, normally, you update it with the crontab command as this HUPs crond after you're done and it'll make sure the file gets in the correct place.
Are you using the crontab command to create the cron entry? crontab to import a file directly. crontab -e to edit the current crontab with $EDITOR.
All jobs run by cron need the interpreter listed at the top, so cron knows how to run them.
I can't tell if you just omitted that line or if it is not in your script.
For example,
#!/bin/bash
echo "Test cron jon"
When running from /var/spool/cron/root, it may be failing because cron is not configured to run for root. On linux, root cron jobs are typically run from /etc/crontab rather than from /var/spool/cron.
When running from /var/spool/cron/myservername, you probably have a permissions problem. Don't redirect the error to /dev/null -- capture them and examine.
Something else to be aware of, cron doesn't initialize the full run environment, which can sometimes mean you can run it just fine from a fully logged-in shell, but it doesn't behave the same from cron.
In the case of above, you don't have a "#!/bin/shell" up top in your script. If root is configured to use something like a regular bourne shell or cshell, the syntax you use to populate your variables will not work. This would explain why it would run, but not populate your files. So if you need it to be ksh, "#!/bin/ksh". It's generally best not to trust the environment to keep these things sane. If you need your profile run the do a ". ~/.profile" up front as well. Or a quick and dirty way to get your relatively full env is to do it from su as such "* * * * * su - root -c "/path/to/script" > /dev/null 2>&1
Just some things I've picked up over the years. You're definitely expecting a ksh based on your syntax, so you might want to be sure it's using it.
Thanks for the tips... used a little bit of each answer to get to the bottom of this.
I did have the interpreter at the top (wasn't shown here), but may have been wrong.
Am using #!/bin/bash now and that works.
Also had to tinker with the permissions of the directory the log files are being dumped in to get things working.

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