[GRLUG] crontab not running a working script

[megadave]

When you issue the command manually, are you running as root (or using
sudo) or as your own user?

Also, are you putting this in the system crontab, root's crontab, or
in your own user crontab?

If the "config" file is in ./home/user/.something - then if cron runs
it as root its looking for /root/.something

If when it works you are running it as yourself (and NOT root), then
it needs to either go in your own user crontab, or if in the system
/etc/crontab, then you need to put your userid in the 'user' field,
rather than root.



On Thu, Jan 12, 2012 at 12:13, 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.
> --
> john-thomas
> ------
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> is a member of the human race. That's bad enough for me.
> Mark Twain, author and humorist (1835-1910)
>
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