topic Re: crontab not working in Operating System - HP-UX

crontab not working

satheeshnp — Wed, 09 Mar 2011 08:37:20 GMT

I have scheduled a script in crontab.
When i tried to run the script manually its working.

But in crontab its not running.

entry is::

13 13 * * 3 /usr/bin/sh /UX-DR/IS/syslog/Syslog_Analysis_Script.sh

every wednesday 01.13 PM i need to run.

Please help where i can check the error.
What may the possible error

Re: crontab not working

Viktor Balogh — Wed, 09 Mar 2011 09:04:08 GMT

Catch the output of the script by redirecting the stdout and stderr to a file:

13 13 * * 3 /usr/bin/sh /UX-DR/IS/syslog/Syslog_Analysis_Script.sh 1>/tmp/Syslog_Analysis_Script.sh.out 2>/tmp/Syslog_Analysis_Script.sh

look for possible errors in that file. The most frequent problem with a cron script is, that it does not inherit the environmental variables from your shell. (like PATH)
So probably you forgot to use declaring commands with full path. But look at the output and you'll see the problem.

Re: crontab not working

Manix — Wed, 09 Mar 2011 18:02:37 GMT

Check your environment differences between command line and cron.

$ env > /tmp/mycommandline.env

and add that command to your script
env > /tmp/mycron.env

Then check that you are giving the full path to commands in your script.

Read the man page on cron, crontab for further information such as:

The shell is invoked from your $HOME directory with an arg0
of sh. Users who desire to have their .profile executed must
explicitly do so in the crontab file.

Re: crontab not working

Manix — Wed, 09 Mar 2011 18:03:12 GMT

Do check !!

1. File permission (execute permission).
2. Path of the script (specify the complete path), from your example the file should be located in root (/).

Re: crontab not working

Steven E. Protter — Wed, 09 Mar 2011 18:30:19 GMT

Shalom,

Is cron running?

ps -ef | grep cron

post

Check /etc/rc.config.d/cron

Make sure it is set to auto start.

/sbin/init.d/cron start

Also note that the environment on cron is different than the user environment.

PATH and such needs to be set in your script.

env > /tmp/env.txt

Good diagnostic tool for the script being run in cron

SEP

Re: crontab not working

mvpel — Wed, 09 Mar 2011 20:16:35 GMT

If the user account which is to run the cron job is disabled or locked out, it can prevent cron jobs from running as well.

Re: crontab not working

Dennis Handly — Thu, 10 Mar 2011 10:23:38 GMT

>13 13 * * 3 /usr/bin/sh /UX-DR/IS/syslog/Syslog_Analysis_Script.sh

This should work. Do you get any mail with any error messages?

Typically you don't need to use /usr/bin/sh in your crontab entry.
You should have "#!/usr/bin/sh" in your script.