Unix oracle ID mail accounts have lots of mail

[q1w2e3r4]

Hello ,

Iam a newbie on this kind of problems . I am on HP-UX 11 and am getting the below error :-

From oradbs01_a@ Sun Jul 27 12:45:04 EDT 2008
Received: (from oradbs01_a@localhost)
by grrapi22.na.steelcase.net (8.11.1/8.11.1) id m6RGj2x16586
for oradbs01_a; Sun, 27 Jul 2008 12:45:02 -0400 (EDT)
Date: Sun, 27 Jul 2008 12:45:02 -0400 (EDT)
From: oradbs01_a@
Message-Id: <200807271645.m6RGj2x16586@>
Cron: can't change directory to your home directory.
Your commands will not be executed.

--

My Questions :-
1] How Do I investigate the above problem ?
2] What could be the actual problem ?
3] My cron does have absolute paths for all the jobs .

Let me know.

[Anshumali]

1] How Do I investigate the above problem?
You can write the output of the cron entry to a file and enable set -x in script.
2] What could be the actual problem ?
Point 1 will suggest it :)
3] My cron does have absolute paths for all the jobs .
Does it has the env paths set as well..

[Steven E. Protter]

Shalom,

Key part of the message:
Cron: can't change directory to your home directory.
Your commands will not be executed.

You have a cron script probably part of oracle cron that can not execute the commands it is being asked to execute.

1] Add a set -x to the script and direct cron job output to an actual file. Remember cron has no preset PATH variable and this is the source of many issues.
2] Almost certainly code that works from the command line and does not work in cron to to environmental differences.
3] You can add a PATH to cron and using absolute path in your cron scripts can avoid these issues.

SEP

[IG_2]

Shalom,

1sf of all determine the script the cron tries to execute (crontab -l on behalf of oradbs01_a). After that check what actions the script is inteneted to do (cat|vi|more . Then check if you $HOME directory - /etc/passwd for user oradbs01_a - is correct one.

Regards,

[q1w2e3r4]

Hello ,

Thanks for your replies.

I cannot touch the scripts in the cron . But now I need to find out :-

1] Where are the mailbox for a particular id ?
2] How do I clean the mails from an id ?
3] Eaxctly how is the mail generated from the scripts/jobs in the cron ?

Let me know

[Anshumali]

1] Where are the mailbox for a particular id ?
/var/mail/user
2] How do I clean the mails from an id ?
cd /var/mail/
>user
3] Eaxctly how is the mail generated from the scripts/jobs in the cron ?
completion/messages goes to your inbox. explicitly, you can also send them to other id's using mailx, sendmail...

[Dennis Handly]

>2] What could be the actual problem?

If your home directories are over NFS, it could be that NFS decided to take a vacation during the cronjob. Are you still getting these messages.

>I cannot touch the scripts in the cron

Why not? Do you have root?

[q1w2e3r4]

Thanks for all your replies.

I was looking at the error's in /var/mail/ files and also found some of the below :-
1]
sh: /oracle/admin/devl/SID/logs/cron_errors.log: Cannot create the specified file.
********************************************
Cron: The previous message is the standard output and standard error of one of your crontab commands:

2]
sh: /oracle/admin/devl/DBS01_A/logs/cron_errors_dbmonitor_hourly.log: Cannot create the specified file.

My questions :-
1] iam assuming that my env has some mismatch, but is this the same reason for the above 2 error's ?

2] I have around 8 HP-UX servers and I need to have a proper soln or the most appropriate solution to the above. What would you all suggest ? Just setting PATH in cron would help ? How do I set PATH in a cron ?

3] We do have weekend failover testing. Could this be one of the cause?
4] My typical /etc/passwd has the follwoing :-

root:*:0:3::/:/sbin/sh
daemon:*:1:5::/:/sbin/sh
bin:*:2:2::/usr/bin:/sbin/sh
sys:*:3:3::/:
adm:*:4:4::/var/adm:/sbin/sh
uucp:*:5:3::/var/spool/uucppublic:/usr/lbin/uucp/uucico
lp:*:9:7::/var/spool/lp:/sbin/sh
nuucp:*:11:11::/var/spool/uucppublic:/usr/lbin/uucp/uucico
hpdb:*:27:1:ALLBASE:/:/sbin/sh
nobody:*:-2:-2::/:
www:*:30:1::/:
smbnull:*:114:101:DO NOT USE OR DELETE - needed by Samba:/home/smbnull:/sbin/sh
sshd:*:134:134:sshd privsep:/var/empty:/bin/false
iwww:*:80:1::/home/iwww:/sbin/sh
owww:*:81:1::/home/owww:/sbin/sh
hpsmh:*:79:79:System Management Homepage:/home/hpsmh:/sbin/sh
:sthanawa /oracle 33> id
uid=100(oracle) gid=200(dba) groups=4024(ftpmpwh),129(fnusr),310(oinstall)
grrapi22:sthanawa /oracle 34>

Let me know.

[Deepak Kr]

Hi,

Provide

crontab -l output.

Also cat scripts there...

if possible run the scripts mentioned in cron using sh +x for debugging...and look for errors...


Regds,

Deepak

[Dennis Handly]

>1] I am assuming that my env has some mismatch, but is this the same reason for the above 2 errors?

Yes.

>sh: /oracle/admin/devl/SID/logs/cron_errors.log: Cannot create the specified file.

Basically you need to look at the permissions of the directory logs/. Does the current user have write permission for it? Also it needs permissions on the whole path to even see logs/.
Check this in your crontab with:
ll -d /oracle/admin/devl/SID/logs

If oradbs01_a doesn't have permission to write, you could create the file under a user that does, then adjust the permission to allow group or everyone to write, or use ACLs to allow that user to write.