topic Re: Unable to set up cron job HP UX in Operating System - HP-UX

Unable to set up cron job HP UX

4joey1 — Tue, 03 May 2011 11:32:09 GMT

Hallo!I am a total newbie to HP-UX Itanium but have prior experience with Linux.I am trying to set up a cron job to run a script called testscript everyday at 3.20 pm.I have edited the cron script via crontab –e as below

5 1 * * * /opt/psb/vacuum
5,20,35,50 * * * * /opt/psb/bin/restart_logserv.sh
5,20,35,50 * * * * /opt/raidsaprovider/bin/restart_raidsaprovider.
sh
5,20,35,50 * * * * /opt/sas/provider/bin/restart_sasprovider.sh
5,20,35,50 * * * * /opt/sfm/bin/restart_sfm.sh
5,20,35,50 * * * * /opt/fcprovider/bin/restart_fcprovider.sh
5,20,35,50 * * * * /opt/dasprovider/bin/restart_dasprovider.sh

20 15 * * * /d01/testscript.sh

But at 3.20 pm the script doesn’t execute.I have edited the cron in Linux in the exact same way and it runs perfectly.

Why cant it run in HP-UX?Also,please explain to me what the numbers 5,20,35,50 mean in HP-UX cron.

Thanks.

Re: Unable to set up cron job HP UX

Hakki Aydin Ucar — Tue, 03 May 2011 11:51:57 GMT

The most important thing is that use full path instead of relative patch due to shell restrictions by cron;
look at you script and use full path in every command you put..

Also ,you can check /var/adm/cron/log

Re: Unable to set up cron job HP UX

g3jza — Tue, 03 May 2011 11:53:09 GMT

Hi,

#man crontab

from left: minute hour monthday month weekday

If your script doesn't execute, you can check /var/adm/cron/log for more information .

Are you able to execute the script without using cron?

Re: Unable to set up cron job HP UX

James R. Ferguson — Tue, 03 May 2011 11:53:14 GMT

Hi:

> But at 3.20 pm the script doesnâ t execute.I have edited the cron in Linux in the exact same way and it runs perfectly.

So, does it execute at 5, 35 and 50 minutes after every hour?

Does the script ever execute under 'cron' in your HP-UX environment?

> Also,please explain to me what the numbers 5,20,35,50 mean in HP-UX cron.

# man crontab

Regards!

...JRF...

Re: Unable to set up cron job HP UX

Matti_Kurkela — Tue, 03 May 2011 12:02:57 GMT

Welcome to ITRC Forums!

Is the script marked as executable?
e.g.
chmod a+x /d01/testscript.sh

Look in your local email inbox (/var/mail/): any error messages the cron job may produce will be mailed to the user that owns the cron job. The error messages should indicate what's the problem with executing your script.

In HP-UX, the environment of cron jobs is very rudimentary: one of the first lines of your script should probably be:
. /etc/PATH
to load the same PATH environment variable value that is used by regular login sessions.

Look in /var/adm/cron/log: there should be a record indicating the start and stop times of your job. If the stop time record includes "rc=", then your job returned an error code.

The numbers like
5,20,35,50 * * * *
mean the job is scheduled to run at xx:05, xx:20, xx:35 and xx:50 each hour.

MK