[Techtalk] Cron

[Dan Richter]

>Actually, it is possible to get a permission denied error as root.

Permissions on the script are okay. I was actually referring to the 
directory and the log file (which don't belong to root).

>Also, which backup software are you running?

It's my own bash script. It's not actually a backup script.

>Which distro and version are you running?

I think it's Red Hat 7.2.

>Also, you said the log files show an error?  What is the error?

The log files are blank. The only way I knew there was an error was by 
executing the script myself: the error was spewed to stderr. But in the 
crontab, stderr is piped to a log file (which is blank). The script 
produces output even if there is no error, so there is no reason for the 
log file to be blank.

The purpose of the script is to check to make sure a program is executing 
and, if it is not, run it. This works fine when I execute the script 
myself, but it doesn't work from cron. I've even told the script to mail me 
(first command in the script), but it doesn't.

So we have three observations:
1) The script is not executing the appropriate program (or even a mail 
program).
2) Nothing is ever written to the script's log file.
3) The cron log file indicates that cron is running the script on cue.

This suggests that some kind of error is stopping the script before it starts.

========== Dan Richter ============== mailto:Dan at wimba.com ===========
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