coldbackup file errors syntax issue need help
 

Here is my script and here is the error can anyone lend a hand?

coldbackupits.sh

# cron script to shutdown database backup files and startup database

#!bin/sh

echo "SHUTTING DOWN THE DATABASE AND BACKING UP THE FILES COLD "

# connect to sqlplus and shutdown database and backup database files


cd /mnt/backups/scripts

sqlplus -s "/ as sysdba" << EOF
shutdown immediate;


cd /mnt/apps2/oracle/ITS

tar -cvzf inst.tar.gz inst

cp -R inst.tar.gz /mnt/backups/ITS

cd /mnt/backups/scripts


sqlplus -s "/ as sysdba" << EOF
startup;


OUTPUT

SHUTTING DOWN THE DATABASE AND BACKING UP THE FILES COLD
Database closed.
Database dismounted.
ORACLE instance shut down.

tar: inst: Cannot stat: No such file or directory
tar: Error exit delayed from previous errors



SP2-0734: unknown command beginning "sqlplus -s..." - rest of line ignored.
ORACLE instance started.

Total System Global Area 1068937216 bytes
Fixed Size 2233336 bytes
Variable Size 427822088 bytes
Database Buffers 624951296 bytes
Redo Buffers 13930496 bytes
Database mounted.
Database opened.

Your first line should have a slash in front of bin:
#!/bin/sh

You should verify /bin/sh is the one you want - on many systems it is a symbolic link to another shell (e.g. bash or dash) and sometimes shells (e.g. dash) don't do things the way you think they do in other shells.

Most of your errors stem from the common problem in cron and other background jobs: That is that the environment variables are not set the same way they are when you run from a login session. Cron has a very minimal environment. The main variable you need is PATH as that tells it where to find commands. If you notice in your output it says it can't find various commands.

You can set variables in the script for example:
export PATH=/oracle/bin:/bin:/usr/bin:/onlygodknows/bin:$PATH

Alternatively you can put the full path of commands in the script for example:
/bin/tar -cvzf inst.tar.gz inst
-NOT JUST-
tar -cvzf inst.tar.gz inst


There may be other variables you need to set. For example if it were Oracle you'd need to set things like ORACLE_HOME so that the sql commands you ran knew the Oracle environment.

Everything MensaWater said; also add
at the top after the "#!/bin/sh" line and capture the output