I have a cron that is not working and just checked to see if cron is actually running using ps ax| grep cron and I got this message:

867 ? S 0:00 /usr/sbin/cron
5123 pts/0 S 0:00 grep cron


can anyone tell me if this means that it actually running?

Cheers,

Dennis

Yes it means that cron is running. What crontab are you using /etc/crontab, or a file under /etc/cron.daily|weekly|monthly or a user crontab under /var/spool/cron?

not really sure just typed crontab cron.txt in the directory that cron.txt is located... when I type crontab -l it shows the crontab that I have setup, it is:

30 9 * * 5 /root/backup/master.txt >> /root/backup 2>&1

I have tried this same one on another machine and it works fine on that one...

BTW... what would be the result if a crontab wasn't running... something like... no crontab scheduled??

Thanks,

Dennis

No result - your crontab would just not be executed.

You should have cron logfile - usually /var/log/cron, or there maybe a /var/log/cron directory under which there are a few logfiles - 'info', 'errors' and 'warnings'

Do these logs say anything about your particular job? When was the cron log last updated? Can you see jobs being executed recently?

yup, when I type grep -iR "cron" /var/log I get the results and it show everything that has run and it shows the cron that I set up

If it shows the cron that you setup - then it means that cron executed the job.

Are you not seeing results? If not, what should happen that is not happening?

You might also want to try and keep the stderr - so remove 2>&1 from the end of the command, that way if there is an error, it will be sent to your mailbox (type mail to read it) and hence help in any diagnosis.

I am running the cron to do backups, the results is that I should have a copy of the files saved on an external hard drive connected to the computer... the only problem is that I am not getting the files copied.

OK we're getting a little further to resolve this now.

When you execute /root/backup/master.txt from the command line - does it work?

it's kind of big, I am running it now, I will get back to you

While you're waiting for it, some things to think about:

1. Remember to try and execute via cron, without throwing away the stderr - it may send a useful error to your mail.
2. Ensure that any commands you are running in the script have been declared in a PATH variable - cron will not inherit the environmental variables of your shell, so if you're using any commands that have not been declared in the PATH variable in the script, cron will not be able to find them. (if the script works from the command line it's probably easier to copy the PATH variable declaration from your .bashrc or .bash_profile - wherever it is located for your user).

These may not solve the problem, but they will help troubleshoot and eliminate possible causes.