Hi

I have Centos 6.2, kernel 2.6.32-220.23.1.el6.x86_64 installed. I want to execute the script with user root cron .The script open browser in backend and render some value.
If I am running the script on shell it runs fine but if I run with user root crontab it doesn't run. i am using absolute path in the script but didn't work and defined path for JAVA_HOME, PATH, DISPLAY in script itself but didn't work. what need to be done to execute with crontab. Below is the script and crontab entry.

#!/bin/bash
export DISPLAY=:0.0
export JAVA_HOME=/usr/java/jdk1.7.0
export PATH=/usr/lib64/qt-3.3/bin:/usr/java/jdk1.7.0/bin:/opt/apache-maven-3.0.4/bin:/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/sbin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/root/bin
/usr/bin/xvfb-run --auto-servernum --server-num=0 /usr/java/jdk1.7.0/bin/java -jar /home/dikshit.rajkhowa/AutoScript/prod6.jar


crontab:
PATH=/sbin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/usr/games:/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin
*/1 * * * * /home/dikshit.rajkhowa/AutoScript/sop_alerts.sh

try that in your script... its a lower case L

What's working shell for root user? Once try like:

How are you expecting the cron job to gain access to the X display?

Shiva.

I tried your way usin -l in the script and set the cronjob like you suggested it didn't work.

linosaurusroot

I mentioned the DISPLAY variable so the xvfb-run should use X display. how is it using mannually on the shell. Actually this is where i am stucking.

Cron doesn't have access to the display unless you are logged in. If you are not logged in, no display, and the program will error out. If someone is logged in other than root, no display, and again the program will error out.

Not a good thing to do with cron.

jpollard:

Even if i logged in the cron doesn't work .

Anything X will need the magic-cookie of the user that started X.

~/.Xauthority

And if we're talking about a chroot environmnet it'll need a lot more than that. Still not a good idea to do with cron. It's probably easier to write out a log file and tail -f /the/log/file in a terminal for anyone monitoring the "alerts".

It can depend on your system... you have to define where the .Xauthority file is located, and that can vary.

The default is ~/.Xauthority, and guided by the environment variable XAUTHORITY.

On some/many systems the file is created per login, and the file name or path changes with each login... and doesn't even need to exist (as in it gets deleted) when you logout.

What are you trying to do in the script?

Script is opening some url in the browser using command xvfb-run and get some values. In shell it is working but with cron it doesn't

Can you provide some log output? How about the cron logs, messages, X11 stuff to start with. Something concrete for us to go on. Heck, throw a -x in your shebang line and let it run so we can see the output in the cron log.

You will need to provide a log of what is being done. Using the virtual frame buffer should not be an issue as the xvfb-run creates its own authority file.

The problem you are trying to solve must be really strange - virtual frame buffer displays don't output anything.

I am attaching emails with strace results with cron and manually. Please check the strace results with cron file filename ( running with cron ) and manually with script filename ( running manually ). Please check if the information is sufficient to diagnose.

Attached Files

	running with cron.txt (6.9 KB, 51 views)
	running mannualy.txt (9.2 KB, 28 views)

First thing I see: "bad file descriptor" (in and of itself is not necessarily an error), look at the system call I see
No error there... but what is that \r doing there? The space preceding it doesn't do anything, but that \r could. Is your script a MSDOS file format??

Other than that, there is nothing really wrong with the trace.

I think you will have to provide the script itself. and a log is usually the output of setting -vx on the interpreter line.

1 members found this post helpful.

Jpollard is correct here. OP, try and write that line out by hand. do not copy and paste it. you have an invisible carriage return and newline character from mac/windows creeping in there.