Cant' Cron on new install
 

New Debian Sarge install, my crontab is not working.

I have a script that I want to execute and I put in in /etc/crontab

SHELL=/bin/sh
PATH=/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/sbin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/usr/bin/FWTools-1.1.3/bin_safe/

# m h dom mon dow user command
30 * * * * root /usr/local/FWTools-1.1.3/bin_safe/goastro
30 * * * * root run-parts --report /etc/cron.hourly
25 6 * * * root test -x /usr/sbin/anacron || run-parts --report /etc/cron.daily
47 6 * * 7 root test -x /usr/sbin/anacron || run-parts --report /etc/cron.weekly
52 6 1 * * root test -x /usr/sbin/anacron || run-parts --report /etc/cron.monthly
#

But it never runs. My old Debian Sarge machine worked fine. What's the problem? The script goastro is a bash script with a+x permissions. I'm logged in to Gnome as regular user, but edit crontab as root. Please help figure out why crontab does not start goastro.

I've aslo tried to crontab -e and put in spooler but that won't go either. crontab -l gives the correct info for root.

What are the access rights of /etc/crontab?
Do the other jobs run OK or not?
Are there any emailed errors?
What does the log say?

try
or
They both do the same thing just a different way of writing it. $PATH is a shortcut your normal environment variable that should include what you have there. If you need another path just tack it onto the end.

I tried the export PATH command.

#echo $PATH
/sbin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/usr/bin/X11:/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/local/FWTools-1.1.3/bin_safe

#goastro
in a terminal window from any directory and the script runs fine. I also tried adding the full path-to-goastro in crontab. Still not working.


#ls -l
-rwxr-xrwx 1 root root 747 2007-01-09 19:58 crontab

There is no /var/log/cronrun logfile. Also there is no /etc/cron.allow or /etc/cron.deny

Here is my current complete crontab:


# /etc/crontab: system-wide crontab
# Unlike any other crontab you don't have to run the `crontab'
# command to install the new version when you edit this file.
# This file also has a username field, that none of the other crontabs do.

SHELL=/bin/sh
PATH=/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/sbin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/usr/bin/FWTools-1.1.3/bin_safe/

# m h dom mon dow user command
05 * * * * root /usr/local/FWTools-1.1.3/bin_safe/goastro
30 * * * * root run-parts --report /etc/cron.hourly
25 6 * * * root test -x /usr/sbin/anacron || run-parts --report /etc/cron.daily
47 6 * * 7 root test -x /usr/sbin/anacron || run-parts --report /etc/cron.weekly
52 6 1 * * root test -x /usr/sbin/anacron || run-parts --report /etc/cron.monthly
#


No email notifications are sent.

Inside goastro are the following three scripts:
getdata.sh
process.py
buildhtml.py

Each of these reside in /usr/local/FWTools-1.1.3/bin_safe/

$ls -l /usr/local/FWTools-1.1.3/bin_safe
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 66 2007-01-09 00:27 goastro
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 629 2006-12-17 19:59 getdata.sh
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 2451 2007-01-01 16:23 process.py
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 1210 2007-01-01 13:22 buildhtml.py

Why not simply put a link to goastro in /etc/cron.hourly

Tried it in cron.hourly first but it didn't work. Now I've tried it in /etc/crontab and also from
$crontab -e

My solution for now is walking up to my computer about once an hour and typing

$goastro

what happens if you chmod 0644 /etc/crontab (unless you run crond -p)?

It is working now & I dont know why. I came home from work yesterday and all my scripts had run. Maybe it was a reboot ?? :scratch:

OK, I have a part of the problem figured out.
Crontab jobs run according to local time.
My jobs are scheduled for specific hours based on UT (GMT).
I use UT because my scripts get worldwide forecast data, which are based on UT and issued at the hours 0UT, 6UT, 12UT, 18UT.

My clock in Gnome is set for 24 hour UT time format but cron was using local time. The solution was change the crontab schedule to local time.