[GRLUG] crontab not running a working script

[Bob Kline]

On Thu, Jan 12, 2012 at 12:13 PM, John-Thomas Richards <jtr at jrichards.org>wrote:

> On Thu, Jan 12, 2012 at 12:04:17PM -0500, Ben Rousch wrote:
> > On Thu, Jan 12, 2012 at 11:47 AM, John-Thomas Richards
> > <jtr at jrichards.org> wrote:
> > > I sync my box to memotoo.com's service.  Works from the commandline
> with
> > > `syncevolution memotoo'.  The password is in the config files so when I
> > > enter the above command, it syncs, then I'm back to a command prompt.
>  I
> > > can take that command and put it in a simple bash script:
> > >
> > >        #!/bin/bash
> > >        syncevolution memotoo
> > >
> > >
> > > It works as expected; no further input is needed.  However, when I put
> > > that script into my crontab, I get this error message:
> > >
> > >        Enter password for memotoo: [ERROR] error code from
> > >        SyncEvolution fatal error (local, status 10500): could not read
> > >        password for memotoo
> > >
> > >        Synchronization failed, see
> > >
>  /home/jtr/.cache/syncevolution/memotoo-2012-01-12-11-38/syncevolution-log.html
> > >        for details.
> > >
> > > The error log simply repeats that it could not read the password.
> > >
> > > My scripting skills are limited; am I missing something?  If it works
> > > from a commandline should it not also work from cron?
> >
> > Cron uses different paths than a normal user. To avoid problems with
> > this you should specify the full path to all executables and files in
> > a cron job. You'll likely have to tell the program exactly where the
> > config file is located.
>
> Is this true even when the command in cron is a bash script?  The line
> in crontab is:
>
> 1 23 * * * /home/jtr/bin/syncmemotoo
>
> It runs every night at 11:00PM.


But does your script need your environment?
The absolute path gets your script, but under
what environment does cron run it?

The crontab(1) points out that a user can have
their own crontab file, but seems a little vague
about whether that implies anything about the
user's own environment.

Can you direct any error messages when
the command is run to yourself?

   -- Bob

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