Ubuntu 14.10

cron not running shell script

I'm having difficulty getting a shell script to work using cron.

I'm doing everything as root user (sudo su).

The script is /var/www/crontest.sh

containing
--
#!/bin/bash

echo "cron test at $(date)" >> crontest.txt
--

The script works if I run it from the command line (ie can see entries in crontest.txt).

In desperation I've chmodded 777 crontest.sh and crontest.txt.

I've added it to spooled crontab file for root using

crontab -e

I've tried each of these

* * * * * /var/www/crontest.sh

1/* * * * * /var/www/crontest.sh

* * * * * /bin/bash /var/www/crontest.sh

1/* * * * * /bin/bash /var/www/crontest.sh

I've also tried editing the /etc/crontab file with each of these

* * * * * root /var/www/crontest.sh
1/* * * * * root /var/www/crontest.sh
* * * * * root /bin/bash /var/www/crontest.sh
1/* * * * * root /bin/bash /var/www/crontest.sh

I've checked that cron is running with

ps -e | grep cron

I've retsarted cron (/etc/init.d/cron restart) & rebooted.

So far nothing has worked.

Any suggestions appreciated.

What do you mean by "so far nothing has worked"?
Try to use full path, so write:
echo "cron test at $(/bin/date)" >> /tmp/crontest.txt

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1. use [code] and [/code] tags
2. to debug, add these lines into your scripts:

Thank you.

I did a search with

find / | grep crontest.txt

and discovered a crontest.txt file in root's home directory with all the date entries in it.

I changed to the absolute path as you suggested.

Silly me!

Thanks for helping me solve it

Cheers

glad to help you
If you really want to say thanks just press YES.
Also please mark the thread SOLVED (if you are satisfied)

1 members found this post helpful.