Crontab troubleshooting

Sparkum

Hey guys.

So lately I've been working on using cron jobs,

I've got it working on one of my boxes just fine, and doing another one on another box, looking essentially identical and nothing.

I've been googling but everyone's suggestions arent working.

So when I run the command sh /home/sparkum/cron/job.sh it works just fine

Under the crontab

 * * * * * /home/sparkum/cron/job.sh

but nothing happens.

I've given it chmod 0755 and chmod +x .... nothing

folder has 777

I was looking at the logs (cant find the command now) and it was only showing my edits

cron job is running, I have reset it several time.

Anyone have any suggestions?

I've tried running it both under root and my sudo user sparkum

Alex Sage

@Sparkum Silly Questions.

Is the script there? Can you run the script manually? Does it work?

scottalanmiller

@aaronstuder said in Crontab troubleshooting:

@Sparkum Silly Questions.

Is the script there? Can you run the script manually? Does it work?

He mentioned that it works.

scottalanmiller

@Sparkum said in Crontab troubleshooting:

So when I run the command sh /home/sparkum/cron/job.sh it works just fine

That's not identical to what you have in the cronjob. You are not pumping it into a shell in cron.

Sparkum

@scottalanmiller

Ya I realize they arent identical, but do I need the leading "sh" in the cron?

As I've only done it once I'm simply comparing it to what I've done, and what I'm finding on google, but both I'm not seeing the leading "sh"

I did just notice its bash...

 #!/bin/bash

I assume that will have some compact?

scottalanmiller

@Sparkum said in Crontab troubleshooting:

@scottalanmiller

Ya I realize they arent identical, but do I need the leading "sh" in the cron?

As I've only done it once I'm simply comparing it to what I've done, and what I'm finding on google, but both I'm not seeing the leading "sh"

I did just notice its bash...
 #!/bin/bash
I assume that will have some compact?

If you need it to run from the command line, you certainly need it from cron. You aren't testing the same thing that you are running. That you added "sh" to the beginning implies that you don't expect it to run from cron either.

scottalanmiller

@Sparkum said in Crontab troubleshooting:

As I've only done it once I'm simply comparing it to what I've done, and what I'm finding on google, but both I'm not seeing the leading "sh"

You basically never use a leading sh, you put in a she-bang header like you show. But you can't test by adding an sh either.

Sparkum

@scottalanmiller

So since noticing its a bash script (the script is to check if a service is running, if it does it echos "service is running" if not it starts the service.

So being that its a bash script should I run

bash /home/sparkum/job.sh

should I rename it to job.bash?

when I run it with bash /home/sparkum/job/.sh it echo's its running (which its not)
when I run with sh it starts the service

Nothing triggering from cron though still

scottalanmiller

@Sparkum said in Crontab troubleshooting:

@scottalanmiller

So since noticing its a bash script (the script is to check if a service is running, if it does it echos "service is running" if not it starts the service.

So being that its a bash script should I run

bash /home/sparkum/job.sh

If you have to run ANY shell in front of the script, it's not going to work in cron. You aren't doing that in cron. They must be identical, not "similar."

scottalanmiller

sh is normally an alias of bash.

Sparkum

So if I run

 /home/sparkum/cron/job.sh

I get the output that the service is running (which it isnt)

if I run

 sh /home/sparkum/cron/job.sh

it says

 /home/sparkum/cron/job.sh: 4: /home/sparkum/cron/job/sh: 5: not round
 starting service

and then all is working....

Sparkum

Script I'm using is

 #!/bin/bash 
 service=replace_me_with_a_valid_service

 if (( $(ps -ef | grep -v grep | grep $service | wc -l) > 0 ))
 then
 echo "$service is running!!!"
 else
 /etc/init.d/$service start
 fi

scottalanmiller

@Sparkum said in Crontab troubleshooting:

So if I run
 /home/sparkum/cron/job.sh
I get the output that the service is running (which it isnt)

if I run
 sh /home/sparkum/cron/job.sh
it says
 /home/sparkum/cron/job.sh: 4: /home/sparkum/cron/job/sh: 5: not round
 starting service
and then all is working....

So something is wrong with your script, then. You need to fix the script so that it works properly before talking about scheduling it. Why is it giving bad output when run as intended?

scottalanmiller

Before we fix this, let's step back. What is the goal here, this does not feel like the right way to be approaching the problem.

Sparkum

@scottalanmiller

Simply to check if a service is running, if it is do nothing,

If the service has stopped, to start it.

scottalanmiller

@Sparkum said in Crontab troubleshooting:

@scottalanmiller

Simply to check if a service is running, if it is do nothing,

If the service has stopped, to start it.

Then why use a script rather than using an industry standard tool for that? Like having the system keep it running itself or using something built for this? Why reinvent the wheel?

Sparkum

@scottalanmiller

Simply chalk it up to me learning.

If you wouldnt mind throwing me in the right direction I'll be on my way haha

scottalanmiller

Even if you do want to reinvent the wheel.... the OS has tools for that, too. You are at the mercy of things with service in their names. That's not good.

What OS are you on? /etc/init.d is deprecated.

Sparkum

@scottalanmiller
Using Ubuntu 14.04

scottalanmiller

@Sparkum said in Crontab troubleshooting:

@scottalanmiller
Using Ubuntu 14.04

Oh okay, probably on the legacy system still then. In that case, what you are looking to do is better done with...

/etc/init.d/servicename status