Using Cron to make newusers every 10 minutes.
 

Hi, I am trying to make the crond run a script which is located in my home directory every ten minutes. The script as guessed runs the newusers command.

--crontab file for root--
#Create all user accounts in newusers.txt file
*/10 * * * * /home/karas/userlist 1> /dev/null

--userlist file located in my home directory--
#!/bin/bash
newusers public_html/newusers.txt
echo -n > public_html/newusers.txt

Then the new newusers.txt file is in the public_html folder and contains the users to be created. The file is in the correct format as I was able to do the newusers command manually as root and it created the users.

But I am stumped as to why the crond does not work. I've had the cron send me emails every 10 minutes just to see that it is working.

So I am pretty lost.

Thanks in advance.

Check the execute permission on your script file.
Try to just specify 777 on script file once just to check that there is no permission related issue.

Thanks

No, that doesn't appear to have made any difference. i've made both the userlist script and newusers.txt have permissions of 777, and nothings changed.

UPDATE:

OK the cron appears to be executing the userlist file....But it's not making the users in the list, it's just deleting everything in the file.

Try giving the full path of the newusers command or setting $PATH in your script. cron runs things in a process environment with a limited $PATH as you can demonstrate by modifying your script to echo $PATH to a file.

In the cron i've given a full path of /home/karas/userlist

And in the userlist file i've given the full path of /home/karas/public_html/newusers.txt

Still no luck. Just deletes the entries without creating a user account.

You'll also need to give the full path to the /usr/sbin/useradd command (and pretty much every other command too).

But I am using newusers? That just takes the contents of a file in the correct format and uses the data to make a new user account? No? :-S

I have never used that command, but I see I have it here:

/usr/sbin/newusers

So, make sure you reference it with the /full/path_to/newusers in your crontab

I think you meant in your script, not crontab ...?

I do. I had a "Senior Moment" (AKA, we hope not, "Alzheimer's hint") ;)

Done that, and got nothing :| Just an empty newusers.txt file.

UPDATE: I got it to do the newusers command and make a new acocunt, however that was only after I commented out the echo -n command.... What is going on :s

Change your script to:

After doing that in the mail for root is the following:

What the foo?

Did you copy and paste the script exactly? There are only 16 lines there...