crontab and user environment

[Eduardo Uribe_1]

Hi Guys!

I was doing some shells and I am able to execute them fine from the command line and it works great.
Once I added the line that executes de shell in the users's cron it doesn't work correctly.
I'm not sure if it is the environment wich doesn't load correctly from the cron...
It would be great if anyone could give me a push, also youcan ask for further info about the shell I know it's hard to understand the problem without seeing the code.
I would tell you that it doesn't even execute sqlplus wich is embedded in the shell.
Here's the mail that cron daemons sends when it tries to execute the shell...
Thanx in advance.



Bases_de_datos[13]: sqlplus: not found
/users/infra/SOPORTE/ED/monitor/log_creator.sh[18]: ./outbox/alertas.eml: cannot create
/users/infra/SOPORTE/ED/monitor/log_creator.sh[18]: ./outbox/alertas.eml: cannot create


*************************************************
Cron: The previous message is the standard output
and standard error of one of your crontab commands:

/users/infra/SOPORTE/ED/monitor/gmon /users/infra/SOPORTE/ED/monitor



Thanx again.

Ed

[Victor_5]

Hi,

There is another post on similiar issue, maybe it is useful for you.

http://forums.itrc.hp.com/cm/QuestionAnswer/1,1150,0x67a972234586d5118ff00090279cd0f9,00.html

[Rodney Hills]

A shell script launched from cron will not have PATH variable fully defined like a regular terminal login.

Either set PATH to where your executables are or specify the full path on commands and files. ie /opt/oracle/bin/sqlplus

-- Rod H

[Rainer von Bongartz]

cron does not take you environement !!!!
you have to set everything that yout shell has in your cron scrip, otherwise your script won't run.

You could do something like the following:

1. collect your environement in a file
env > /tmp/en

2. insert this file at the beginning of you cron script

3. try it

[A. Clay Stephenson · Accepted solution]

Hi Eduardo,

This is a very common occurence. The environment under which a cron job is run is intentionally very sparse.

You script need's to set ORACLE_HOME, ORACLE_SID, ORACLE_BASE, TNS_ADMIN, PATH, ...

My favorite way to do this is to create a script in /usr/local/bin (e.g.) oraenv.sh
something like this:

export ORACLE_BASE=/u01/app/oracle
export ORACLE_HOME=${ORACLE_BASE}/product/8.1.7

(Make sure you do not put an exit statement in the file)

and anything else

your cron script should then source this file
. /usr/local/bin/oraenv.sh
you should then set PATH
and start up script code

any database user should also source this file as part of their .profiles


Clay

[James R. Ferguson]

Hi:

'cron's environment lacks all of your environmental variables (including your PATH) that you normally rely on (and forget about) when you are working in your normal login shell.

There are several ways to circument this and obtain a similar environment.

You can source your profile ahead of calling your script. This can be done in the crontab entry. Alternatively, you can source your profile within the script itself to provide the necessary environmental variables you need. Thirdly, you can create a new file which contains and exports the common variables needed for your application, and source (read) that within your standard profile, within standard scripts; and/or in a crontab stream.

To source (read) a file within a script, put a dot (".") in front of the script name. For instance, to source a file called /myscript you would do:

. /myscript #...note the space between the dot and the script name.

...JRF...

[Praveen Bezawada]

Hi
When executing using cron all the environment setting have to be set explicitly in the script. As cron does not login to run the script the environment with not be set.
Simply put, all the settings in the your .profile need to be in the script.

[Magdi KAMAL]

Hi,

You must execute, as first instruction in the crontab script, .profile file in order to have the environment variables set.

without doing that, only four environment variables are set.

Magdi