topic Re: crontab for specific user in Operating System - HP-UX

crontab for specific user

Leo The Cat — Wed, 22 Aug 2007 08:05:50 GMT

Hi

I need to prepare a crontab on the oracle user. How to write the crontab line and to be sure that user profile will be read before calling the script ?

With AIX i can write something like that:
50 12 * * * /usr/bin/ksh -c "( . /etc/profile; . /gespxpm/ms/users/gespxpm/.profile >/dev/null; . /gespxpm/ms/exp/jcl/ADM_ORA_MajTableSuiviActivite.ksh dba_tools dba >/dev/null 2>&1)"

How to with Hp-UX ?

Regards
Den

Re: crontab for specific user

Steven E. Protter — Wed, 22 Aug 2007 08:11:21 GMT

Shalom Den,

I suggest building the profile read into the script.

That seems much easier than what you are doing in AIX.

/usr/bin/su -c username

That format will work in cron.

SEP

Re: crontab for specific user

James R. Ferguson — Wed, 22 Aug 2007 08:41:04 GMT

Hi Den:

This would work with HP-UX but you would want to source the user's ".profile" since that is a user's local view whereas '/etc/profile' is the global view.

Having said that, however, there are better ways than sourcing a profile. A profile is designed for interactive use during login. As such, HP-UX '.profile's contain terminal-interactive 'stty' and 'tset' commands that expect the process to be attached to a terminal. A crontask has no controlling terminal and thus sourcing a '.profile' will yield "not a typewriter" messages when 'stty' and/or 'tset' commands execute.

Certainly, you can redirect STDERR to '/dev/null' to eliminate these messages, but that may hide *useful* messages too. One better approach is to only conditionaly execute the 'stty' and 'tset' commands if your environment is associated with a terminal:

if [ -t 0 ]; then
...

A second approach is to put your environmental variables in a file that is separate from your profile. Then, source that file in your profile for logins as well as in crontasks and scripts as needed.

Regards!

...JRF...

Re: crontab for specific user

Leo The Cat — Wed, 22 Aug 2007 09:27:13 GMT

Huh

the oracle user crontab below doesn't works.

00,10,20,30,40,50 * * * * /usr/bin/su - oracle /logiciel/app/oracle/oas10g/measures/GenerateOASMeasures.ksh

I finally prefer:

00,10,20,30,40,50 * * * * /usr/bin/ksh -c "( . /etc/profile; . /logiciel/app/oracle/.profile > /dev/null; . /logiciel/app/oracle/oas10g/m
easures/GenerateOASMeasures.ksh >/dev/null 2>&1)"

Regards
Den

Re: crontab for specific user

James R. Ferguson — Wed, 22 Aug 2007 09:40:29 GMT

Hi Den:

# su - oracle -c "script"

Regards!

...JRF...

Re: crontab for specific user

tsf_1 — Thu, 23 Aug 2007 04:18:15 GMT

Edit and submit a cronfile:
# crontab -e

If cron won't work, try to find error in /var/adm/cron/log. If log has no info, suggest:
(1) check user's incoming mail (system will sent messages if cron failed.
(2) add additioanl entry at cron command to get more hint/error at /tmp/err.txt if cron not working; for example

* * * * * /myscript >> /tmp/err.txt 2>&1

Re: crontab for specific user

Leo The Cat — Thu, 23 Aug 2007 11:10:09 GMT

Thanks it's ok -c and other informations were welcomed.

Regards
Den