Volker Kuhlmann wrote:
On Sun 06 Apr 2008 10:21:20 NZST +1200, Roger Searle wrote:
When run from the command line, they execute fine and I get the expected
file sizes of several hundred MB or a GB. When run from cron, they
consistently create tar files of around 5 or 10 kb.
The cause of this sort of problem is almost always the same: When you
loig in interactively, you get a fully set up login shell and
environment. When cron runs a command, it switches to the correct user
ID but barely sets up 5 environment variables. The execution environment
of your programs from within cron is different to your interactive one.
To investigate, run the command env from inside a script which is run by
cron, and redirect its output to a file. Compare with what you get
interactively. Pay special attention to PATH.
Volker
My user PATH:
PATH=/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/sbin:/bin:/usr/games
The cron environment PATH:
PATH=/usr/bin:/bin
Also:
[EMAIL PROTECTED]:~$ whereis tar
tar: /bin/tar
So tar is covered by either PATH. However the following script will NOT
run via cron:
/bin/tar -czvf /media/backup/backup-home-`date +%a-%d-%m-%y`.tgz
/home/roger
(the tgz file is created, but is always 9 or 10kb)
Perhaps that is because the shebang at the top of the script is:
#!/bin/bash
and cron's environment has:
SHELL=/bin/sh
but changing the shebang to #!/bin/sh does not get the script running
via cron. Can anyone suggest what I need to do?
Cheers,
Roger
