about my script !

[leyearn]

my net has been infected by the virus!
so the process of rpcd(on my hp workstation) is often be killed by the virus on the windows systems!
because of my 10.10 os ,there is no patch for it
so i write a script:

RPCD=$(ps -ef |grep -c rpcd)
if [ $RPCD -eq 0 ]
then
/opt/dce/sbin/rpcd
date > /script/rpcd/date
fi

it can be run manually
but when i put it into cron
i will not be execute!
why?

[Stefan Farrelly]

Firstly you should change your grep -c line to grep -v grep or else or you will ocasionally pick up your own grep command instead of checking if rpcd is running;

RPCD=$(ps -ef|grep -v grep|grep -c rpcd)

The way to restart rpcd is;

/sbin/init.d/Rpcd start

Give that a try.

[Jean-Luc Oudart]

You can reduce the nb of process being run

RPCD=$(ps -ef|grep -c [r]pcd)

Rgds,
JL

[Kevin O'Donovan]

I'm a small bit rusty on my scripting, but what shell do you run it in when you run it manually? Cron scripts are run in an sh shell, and I'm not sure about the if [ ] syntax works in sh...

You might want to try test instead, like:
if (test $RPCD = 0)

hope that helps,
Kevin.

[Kevin O'Donovan]

Actually you can probably scratch that, think test and [ ] are the same and both work in Bourne shell...

Have you checked the output from the cron, to see what exactly the error is?

[leyearn]

to Stefan Farrelly


i didn't find /sbin/init.d/Rpcd on my system

my os is hpux 10.10

i found /sbin/init.d/dce
can i use /sbin/init.d/dce start instead?

thanks!

[Steven E. Protter]

Something to understand about cron.

The environment is minimal.

No TERM, limited PATH.

To avoid this, I make sure any scripts called by cron either have a complete PATH or each command has the full path of the binries you are calling.

SEP

[leyearn]

i have test the script
the problem may be the way that i start the rpcd daemon!

but i have use the absolute path : /opt/dce/sbin/rpcd

but in this situation
i can execute the script manually!

but cron can't!

[john korterman]

Hi,

The first line of your script should specify which shell to use, e.g.:
#!/usr/bin/sh

When you execute your script on the command line it is executed in your current shell - and that is probably not the same as the cron default shell. Therefore, specify the shell.
Anyway, what error do you get from cron?

regards,
John K.

[Leif Halvarsson_2]

Hi,

Try to redirect the output from your cron job to a log file and see if you get any error messages.

0,15,30,45 * * * * <script> >>/tmp/abc.log 2>1

Another solution for this may be to start rpcd from inittab with the respawn option.

[john korterman]

Hi again

I would suggest that you change
2>1
in Leif Halvarsson's suggestion to
2>&1

but if the output from a cron script is not redirected to a file, it is mailed to the crontab user; check also the mail messages.

regards,
John K.