There is a simple cron job:
#reboot /home/user/scripts/run.sh > /dev/null 2>&1
run.sh starts a binary (simple web server):
#!/usr/bin/env bash
NPID=/home/user/server/websrv
if [ ! -f $NPID ]
then
echo "Not started"
echo "Starting"
nohup home/user/server/websrv &> my_script.out &
else
NUM=$(ps ax | grep $(cat $NPID) | grep -v grep | wc -l)
if [ $NUM -lt 1 ]
then
echo "Not working"
echo "Starting"
nohup home/user/server/websrv &> my_script.out &
else
ps ax | grep $(cat $NPID) | grep -v grep
echo "All Ok"
fi
fi
websrv gets JSON from user, and runs work.sh script itselves.
The problem is that sh script, which is invoked by websrv, "does not see" commands and stops with exit 1.
The script work.sh is like this:
#!/bin/sh -e
if [ "$#" -ne 1 ]; then
echo "Usage: $0 INPUT"
exit 1
fi
cd $(dirname $0) #good!
pwd #good!
IN="$1"
echo $IN #good!
KEYFORGIT="/some/path"
eval `ssh-agent -s` #good!
which ssh-add #good! (returns /usr/bin/ssh-add)
ssh-add $KEYFORGIT/openssh #error: exit 1!
git pull #error: exit 1!
cd $(dirname $0) #good!
rm -f somefile #error: exit 1!
#############==========Etc.==============
Usage of the full paths does not help.
If the script has been executed itself, it works.
If run.sh manually, it also works.
If I run the command nohup home/user/server/websrv & if works as well.
However, if all this chain of tools is started by cron on boot, work.sh is not able to perform any command except of cp, pwd, which, etc. But invoke of ssh-add, git, cp, rm, make etc., forces exit 1 status of the script. Why it "does not see" the commands? Unfortunately, I also cannot get any extended log which might explain the particular errors.
Try adding the path from the session that runs the script correctly to the cron entry (or inside the script)
Get the current path (where the script runs fine) with echo $PATH and add that to the crontab: replacing the string below with the output -> <REPLACE_WITH_OUTPUT_FROM_ABOVE>
#reboot export PATH=$PATH:<REPLACE_WITH_OUTPUT_FROM_ABOVE>; /home/user/scripts/run.sh > /dev/null 2>&1
You can compare paths with a cron entry like this to see what cron's PATH is:
* * * * * echo $PATH > /tmp/crons_path
Then cat /tmp/crons_path to see what it says.
Example output:
$ crontab -l | grep -v \#
* * * * * echo $PATH >> /tmp/crons_path
# wait a minute or so...
$ cat /tmp/crons_path
/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/sbin:/bin:/usr/games:/usr/local/games:/snap/bin
$ echo $PATH
/home/ubuntu/.local/bin:/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/sbin:/bin:/usr/games:/usr/local/games:/snap/bin
As the commenter above mentioned, crontab doesn't always use the same path as user so likely something is missing.
Be sure to remove the temp cron entry after testing (crontab -e, etc.)...
I have a simple shell script where I need to check if my EMR job is running or not and I am just printing a log but it does not seem to work properly when scheduling the script using cron as it always prints the if block statement because the value of "status_live" var is always empty so if anyone can suggest what is wrong here otherwise on manually running the script it works properly.
#!/bin/sh
status_live=$(yarn application -list | grep -i "Streaming App")
if [ -z $status_live ]
then
echo "Running spark streaming job again at: "$(date) &
else
echo "Spark Streaming job is running, at: "$(date)
fi
Your script cannot run in cron because cron script has no environment context at all.
For example try to run your script as another use nobody that has no shell.
sudo -u nobody <script-full-path>
It will fail because it has no environment context.
The solution is to add your user environment context to your script. Just add source to your .bash_profile
sed -i "2a source $HOME/.bash_profile" <script-full-path>
Your script should look like:
#!/bin/sh
source /home/<your user name>/.bash_profile
status_live=$(yarn application -list | grep -i "Streaming App")
if [ -z $status_live ]
then
echo "Running spark streaming job again at: "$(date) &
else
echo "Spark Streaming job is running, at: "$(date)
fi
Now try to run it again with user nobody, if it works than cron will work as well.
sudo -u nobody <script-full-path>
Note that cron has no standard output. and you will need to redirect standard output from your script to a log file.
<script-full-path> >> <logfile-full-path>
# $? will have the last command status in bash shell scripting
# your complete command here below and status_live is 0 if it finds in grep (i.e. true in shell if condition.)
yarn application -list | grep -i "Streaming App"
status_live=$?
echo status_live: ${status_live}
if [ "$status_live" -eq 0 ]; then
echo "success
else
echo "fail"
fi
I have a bash script, that runs just fine from the command line. After adding it to the root users crontab (sudo crontab -e), I find it does not run. Here is the cron task:
0,15,30,45 * * * * /Users/lorenzot/Documents/scripts/restart-net.sh
Here is the script:
#!/bin/bash
echo "Net script" | logger -s >> /Library/Logs/netlog.log
# Ping twice just to be sure
/sbin/ping -c 2 8.8.8.8
/sbin/ping -c 2 8.8.8.8
if [ $? -ge 1 ]; then
echo "Network down :("
ifconfig en1 down
ifconfig en1 up
exit 1
else
echo "Network up! :)"
exit 0
fi
The script is owned by root and of course, it is executable (766) and it does exist at the correct path.
I'm not seeing an entry in the log file, but I'm not sure if this is the correct way of writing to a log file. I've tried a few different variations including:
syslog -s -k Facility com.apple.console \
Level Error \
Sender restartscript \
Message "Restart network script run"
But nothing is written to any log. Nevertheless, I would expect to see a log entry for the cron task having executed.
Any ideas?
Thanks
'logger -s` sends a copy of the message to stderr, not stdout. Also, you can pass the message as an argument, rather than via stdin. Try this:
logger -s "Net script" 2>> /Library/Logs/netlog.log
Does crontab have an argument for creating cron jobs without using the editor (crontab -e)? If so, what would be the code to create a cron job from a Bash script?
You can add to the crontab as follows:
#write out current crontab
crontab -l > mycron
#echo new cron into cron file
echo "00 09 * * 1-5 echo hello" >> mycron
#install new cron file
crontab mycron
rm mycron
Cron line explaination
* * * * * "command to be executed"
- - - - -
| | | | |
| | | | ----- Day of week (0 - 7) (Sunday=0 or 7)
| | | ------- Month (1 - 12)
| | --------- Day of month (1 - 31)
| ----------- Hour (0 - 23)
------------- Minute (0 - 59)
Source nixCraft.
You may be able to do it on-the-fly
crontab -l | { cat; echo "0 0 0 0 0 some entry"; } | crontab -
crontab -l lists the current crontab jobs, cat prints it, echo prints the new command and crontab - adds all the printed stuff into the crontab file. You can see the effect by doing a new crontab -l.
This shorter one requires no temporary file, it is immune to multiple insertions, and it lets you change the schedule of an existing entry.
Say you have these:
croncmd="/home/me/myfunction myargs > /home/me/myfunction.log 2>&1"
cronjob="0 */15 * * * $croncmd"
To add it to the crontab, with no duplication:
( crontab -l | grep -v -F "$croncmd" ; echo "$cronjob" ) | crontab -
To remove it from the crontab whatever its current schedule:
( crontab -l | grep -v -F "$croncmd" ) | crontab -
Notes:
grep -F matches the string literally, as we do not want to interpret it as a regular expression
We also ignore the time scheduling and only look for the command. This way; the schedule can be changed without the risk of adding a new line to the crontab
Thanks everybody for your help. Piecing together what I found here and elsewhere I came up with this:
The Code
command="php $INSTALL/indefero/scripts/gitcron.php"
job="0 0 * * 0 $command"
cat <(fgrep -i -v "$command" <(crontab -l)) <(echo "$job") | crontab -
I couldn't figure out how to eliminate the need for the two variables without repeating myself.
command is obviously the command I want to schedule. job takes $command and adds the scheduling data. I needed both variables separately in the line of code that does the work.
Details
Credit to duckyflip, I use this little redirect thingy (<(*command*)) to turn the output of crontab -l into input for the fgrep command.
fgrep then filters out any matches of $command (-v option), case-insensitive (-i option).
Again, the little redirect thingy (<(*command*)) is used to turn the result back into input for the cat command.
The cat command also receives echo "$job" (self explanatory), again, through use of the redirect thingy (<(*command*)).
So the filtered output from crontab -l and the simple echo "$job", combined, are piped ('|') over to crontab - to finally be written.
And they all lived happily ever after!
In a nutshell:
This line of code filters out any cron jobs that match the command, then writes out the remaining cron jobs with the new one, effectively acting like an "add" or "update" function.
To use this, all you have to do is swap out the values for the command and job variables.
EDIT (fixed overwriting):
cat <(crontab -l) <(echo "1 2 3 4 5 scripty.sh") | crontab -
There have been a lot of good answers around the use of crontab, but no mention of a simpler method, such as using cron.
Using cron would take advantage of system files and directories located at /etc/crontab, /etc/cron.daily,weekly,hourly or /etc/cron.d/:
cat > /etc/cron.d/<job> << EOF
SHELL=/bin/bash
PATH=/sbin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin
MAILTO=root HOME=/
01 * * * * <user> <command>
EOF
In this above example, we created a file in /etc/cron.d/, provided the environment variables for the command to execute successfully, and provided the user for the command, and the command itself. This file should not be executable and the name should only contain alpha-numeric and hyphens (more details below).
To give a thorough answer though, let's look at the differences between crontab vs cron/crond:
crontab -- maintain tables for driving cron for individual users
For those who want to run the job in the context of their user on the system, using crontab may make perfect sense.
cron -- daemon to execute scheduled commands
For those who use configuration management or want to manage jobs for other users, in which case we should use cron.
A quick excerpt from the manpages gives you a few examples of what to and not to do:
/etc/crontab and the files in /etc/cron.d must be owned by root, and must not be group- or other-writable. In contrast to the spool area, the files under /etc/cron.d or the files under /etc/cron.hourly, /etc/cron.daily, /etc/cron.weekly and /etc/cron.monthly may also be symlinks, provided that both the symlink and the file it points to are owned by root. The files under /etc/cron.d do not need to be executable, while the files under /etc/cron.hourly, /etc/cron.daily, /etc/cron.weekly and /etc/cron.monthly do, as they are run by run-parts (see run-parts(8) for more information).
Source: http://manpages.ubuntu.com/manpages/trusty/man8/cron.8.html
Managing crons in this manner is easier and more scalable from a system perspective, but will not always be the best solution.
So, in Debian, Ubuntu, and many similar Debian based distros...
There is a cron task concatenation mechanism that takes a config file, bundles them up and adds them to your cron service running.
You can put a file under the /etc/cron.d/somefilename where somefilename is whatever you want.
sudo echo "0,15,30,45 * * * * ntpdate -u time.nist.gov" >> /etc/cron.d/vmclocksync
Let's disassemble this:
sudo - because you need elevated privileges to change cron configs under the /etc directory
echo - a vehicle to create output on std out. printf, cat... would work as well
" - use a doublequote at the beginning of your string, you're a professional
0,15,30,45 * * * * - the standard cron run schedule, this one runs every 15 minutes
ntpdate -u time.nist.gov - the actual command I want to run
" - because my first double quotes needs a buddy to close the line being output
>> - the double redirect appends instead of overwrites*
/etc/cron.d/vmclocksync - vmclocksync is the filename I've chosen, it goes in /etc/cron.d/
* if we used the > redirect, we could guarantee we only had one task entry. But, we would be at risk of blowing away any other rules in an existing file. You can decide for yourself if possible destruction with > is right or possible duplicates with >> are for you. Alternatively, you could do something convoluted or involved to check if the file name exists, if there is anything in it, and whether you are adding any kind of duplicate-- but, I have stuff to do and I can't do that for you right now.
For a nice quick and dirty creation/replacement of a crontab from with a BASH script, I used this notation:
crontab <<EOF
00 09 * * 1-5 echo hello
EOF
Chances are you are automating this, and you don't want a single job added twice.
In that case use:
__cron="1 2 3 4 5 /root/bin/backup.sh"
cat <(crontab -l) |grep -v "${__cron}" <(echo "${__cron}")
This only works if you're using BASH. I'm not aware of the correct DASH (sh) syntax.
Update: This doesn't work if the user doesn't have a crontab yet. A more reliable way would be:
(crontab -l ; echo "1 2 3 4 5 /root/bin/backup.sh") | sort - | uniq - | crontab -
Alternatively, if your distro supports it, you could also use a separate file:
echo "1 2 3 4 5 /root/bin/backup.sh" |sudo tee /etc/crond.d/backup
Found those in another SO question.
echo "0 * * * * docker system prune --force >/dev/null 2>&1" | sudo tee /etc/cron.daily/dockerprune
A variant which only edits crontab if the desired string is not found there:
CMD="/sbin/modprobe fcpci"
JOB="#reboot $CMD"
TMPC="mycron"
grep "$CMD" -q <(crontab -l) || (crontab -l>"$TMPC"; echo "$JOB">>"$TMPC"; crontab "$TMPC")
(2>/dev/null crontab -l ; echo "0 3 * * * /usr/local/bin/certbot-auto renew") | crontab -
cat <(crontab -l 2>/dev/null) <(echo "0 3 * * * /usr/local/bin/certbot-auto renew") | crontab -
#write out current crontab
crontab -l > mycron 2>/dev/null
#echo new cron into cron file
echo "0 3 * * * /usr/local/bin/certbot-auto renew" >> mycron
#install new cron file
crontab mycron
rm mycron
If you're using the Vixie Cron, e.g. on most Linux distributions, you can just put a file in /etc/cron.d with the individual cronjob.
This only works for root of course. If your system supports this you should see several examples in there. (Note the username included in the line, in the same syntax as the old /etc/crontab)
It's a sad misfeature in cron that there is no way to handle this as a regular user, and that so many cron implementations have no way at all to handle this.
My preferred solution to this would be this:
(crontab -l | grep . ; echo -e "0 4 * * * myscript\n") | crontab -
This will make sure you are handling the blank new line at the bottom correctly. To avoid issues with crontab you should usually end the crontab file with a blank new line. And the script above makes sure it first removes any blank lines with the "grep ." part, and then add in a new blank line at the end with the "\n" in the end of the script. This will also prevent getting a blank line above your new command if your existing crontab file ends with a blank line.
Bash script for adding cron job without the interactive editor.
Below code helps to add a cronjob using linux files.
#!/bin/bash
cron_path=/var/spool/cron/crontabs/root
#cron job to run every 10 min.
echo "*/10 * * * * command to be executed" >> $cron_path
#cron job to run every 1 hour.
echo "0 */1 * * * command to be executed" >> $cron_path
Here is a bash function for adding a command to crontab without duplication
function addtocrontab () {
local frequency=$1
local command=$2
local job="$frequency $command"
cat <(fgrep -i -v "$command" <(crontab -l)) <(echo "$job") | crontab -
}
addtocrontab "0 0 1 * *" "echo hello"
CRON="1 2 3 4 5 /root/bin/backup.sh"
cat < (crontab -l) |grep -v "${CRON}" < (echo "${CRON}")
add -w parameter to grep exact command, without -w parameter adding the cronjob "testing" cause deletion of cron job "testing123"
script function to add/remove cronjobs. no duplication entries :
cronjob_editor () {
# usage: cronjob_editor '<interval>' '<command>' <add|remove>
if [[ -z "$1" ]] ;then printf " no interval specified\n" ;fi
if [[ -z "$2" ]] ;then printf " no command specified\n" ;fi
if [[ -z "$3" ]] ;then printf " no action specified\n" ;fi
if [[ "$3" == add ]] ;then
# add cronjob, no duplication:
( crontab -l | grep -v -F -w "$2" ; echo "$1 $2" ) | crontab -
elif [[ "$3" == remove ]] ;then
# remove cronjob:
( crontab -l | grep -v -F -w "$2" ) | crontab -
fi
}
cronjob_editor "$1" "$2" "$3"
tested :
$ ./cronjob_editor.sh '*/10 * * * *' 'echo "this is a test" > export_file' add
$ crontab -l
$ */10 * * * * echo "this is a test" > export_file
No, there is no option in crontab to modify the cron files.
You have to: take the current cron file (crontab -l > newfile), change it and put the new file in place (crontab newfile).
If you are familiar with perl, you can use this module Config::Crontab.
LLP, Andrea
script function to add cronjobs. check duplicate entries,useable expressions * > "
cronjob_creator () {
# usage: cronjob_creator '<interval>' '<command>'
if [[ -z $1 ]] ;then
printf " no interval specified\n"
elif [[ -z $2 ]] ;then
printf " no command specified\n"
else
CRONIN="/tmp/cti_tmp"
crontab -l | grep -vw "$1 $2" > "$CRONIN"
echo "$1 $2" >> $CRONIN
crontab "$CRONIN"
rm $CRONIN
fi
}
tested :
$ ./cronjob_creator.sh '*/10 * * * *' 'echo "this is a test" > export_file'
$ crontab -l
$ */10 * * * * echo "this is a test" > export_file
source : my brain ;)
Say you're logged in as the user "ubuntu", but you want to add a job to a different user's crontab, like "john", for example. You can do the following:
(sudo crontab -l -u john; echo "* * * * * command") | awk '!x[$0]++' | sudo crontab -u john -
Source for most of this solution: https://www.baeldung.com/linux/create-crontab-script
I was having tons of issues trying to add a job to another user's crontab. It kept duplicating crontabs, or just flat-out deleting them. After some testing, though, I'm confident this line of code will append a new job to a specified user's crontab, non-destructively, including not creating a job that already exists.
I wanted to find an example like this, so maybe it helps:
COMMAND="/var/lib/postgresql/backup.sh"
CRON="0 0 * * *"
USER="postgres"
CRON_FILE="postgres-backup"
# At CRON times, the USER will run the COMMAND
echo "$CRON $USER $COMMAND" | sudo tee /etc/cron.d/$CRON_FILE
echo "Cron job created. Remove /etc/cron.d/$CRON_FILE to stop it."