I just have started to use crontab and have some problems with it. I have already read some posts about how to use it on macOS, but it still not working.
So,
I write crontab -e, then edit it to
*/1 * * * * cliclick -w 1 m:3,3 (for example) - which mean repeat click in x=3;y=3 every 1 min.
And nothing has changed.
But, when I use just this command from the terminal everything is ok.
I have already tried to create a script.sh file, and the same situation: from hand-command it works, and from crontab isn't.
Maybe, I do something wrong?
UPDATE: Full disk access crontab has.
UPDATE2:
I tried do it again on the BigSur. First of all I use a more simple command like echo:
* * * * * echo 'test' >> /*/Desktop/text.txt
And it works well. After that, I write my own script.sh
echo '2test' >> /Users/***/Desktop/t.txt
/usr/local/bin/cliclick -w 1 m:1,3
cliclick -w 1 m:55,44
And it the cliclick not working, as the other bin files located in /usr/local/bin/ (cliclick located in this path)
Note, that if I execute ./script.sh then cliclick works fine in both cases.
I thoroughly googled and found that run cliclick (and other) is NOT possible though crontab: https://github.com/BlueM/cliclick/issues/103
My Problem was, that cron had no access to the Disk, so it couldn't run my script. I had to give Full Disk Access for /usr/sbin/cron
See this blog post: https://blog.bejarano.io/fixing-cron-jobs-in-mojave/
(macOS Big Sur Version 11.2.3)
First you have to verify whether a cron exists or not with crontab -l.
After you're done creating a cronjob, you'll see something like "crontab: installing new crontab". (If you don't see this message, the job hasn't been created and will not show when you run crontab -l)
To ensure that the cronjob executes, I've had to do what #roNn23 and #berkinet have suggested. Elaborating in case the linked article goes down:
Give "Full Disk Access" (under System Preferences > Security & Privacy > Privacy) to:-
/usr/sbin/cron using the Go to folder shortcut "command + shift + G"
Terminal.app
Give terminal.app Full Disk Access.
You need to authorize Full Disk Access for terminal.app in Settings > Security & Privacy > Privacy.
You can check if there are any errors while running the cron by configuring it as below.
*/1 * * * * cliclick -w 1 m:3,3 >> output.log 2>&1
the last part 2>&1 will redirect the STDERR to the output.log as well.
Related
I'm attempting to cron a simple bash script on my macbook-pro laptop. Ultimately, I would like to first get this to work for bash script and then move on to my python scripts. I've created a simple bash file (named hello.sh) with the code below:
#!/bin/bash
echo "Hello World" >> /Users/myusername/Desktop/test.txt
And my crontab -e is designated as follows:
* * * * * /bin/bash /Users/myusername/Desktop/bash-files/hello.sh
However, I get nothing after waiting a minute.
After googling around, I concluded that maybe I was running into the "gotcha" issue (cron reading different parameters than env). So I queued the following:
* * * * * env > /tmp/env.output
and it's output as follows
SHELL=/bin/sh
USER=myusername
PATH=/usr/bin:/bin
PWD=/Users/myusername
SHLVL=1
HOME=/Users/myusername
LOGNAME=myusername
_=/usr/bin/env
running env in my terminal produces the following relevant parameters:
SHELL=/bin/zsh
USER=myusername
PATH=/Users/myusername/opt/anaconda3/bin:/Users/myusername/opt/anaconda3/condabin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/sbin:/Library/TeX/texbin:/opt/X11/bin
PWD=/tmp
SHLVL=1
HOME=/Users/myusername
LOGNAME=myusername
_=/usr/bin/env
I've added the above parameter settings to my hello.sh script but I still get nothing.
Can anyone point out to what my issue is here?
These are permission and path errors, easily resolved.
Look in system preferences to grant full disk access to your binaries and unset PATH in your scripts to catch any paths that are not complete.
I recommend /usr/local/bin for ease of maintaining any scripts you wish to have launchd or cron to schedule.
There’s no reason you can’t run from your user folder if that suits you, however.
I read the other related topics but they didn't help me.
I have a shell script which checks if my python script is not running,it will run it. Otherwise it will just skip and do nothing.
It totally works when I use:
bash myshellscrip.sh
And I get the result that I want which is doing some tasks and sending emails to some correspondents. However, when I try to run this particular shell script on crontab, it doesn't send out the emails and doesn't do the other tasks.
I tried the following on crontab and none of them worked.
* * * * * /bin/bash /path/to/my/script/myshellscrip.sh
* * * * * /bin/bash /path/to/my/script/myshellscrip.sh >> /some/other/path/output.txt
When I save the changes into 'output.txt' file, it creates the file but it doesn't send the emails or doing other tasks.
I also tried the option of reboot because I need this program to run at start up too, and this didn't work:
#reboot /bin/bash /path/to/my/script/myshellscrip.sh
Does anyone know how to fix it?
EDIT:
As I was checking with the simplest shell scrip like:
#!/bin/sh
/usr/bin/python /home/pi/DCA/code.py
My crontab wouldn't have any output in my output.txt file although my code.py have something printing out, too.
However, when I use a very simple python code for example only a 'print' statement it will run and save the output into output.txt.
Seems like your shell script crashes / stops before it can do something (possibly due to the environment being different or permission issues). You can check /var/log/syslog to find out.
You could try removing /bin/bash, I don't think that's necessary?
Run the cron job in debug mode. for that, Add -x to the bash command on the cronjob and save their output in the file.
bash -x /path/to/script.sh >> /path/to/the/output.txt
You can find the problem.
Apparently crontab was running my script several times. So I tried to use different locking mechanisms to put a lock around my scrip but only using flock worked for me. In my crontab I added this line:
* * * * * /usr/bin/flock -n /tmp/ms.lockfile /bin/bash /path/to/my/script/myShellScript.sh
Following is the entry in the crontab:
MAILTO=abc#gmail.com
45 14 * * * /home/user/simple.sh
I've also done chmod +x on the simple.sh But the crontab does not run, it doesn't even send an email.
pgrep cron shows an Id. I also tried bouncing crond. But no luck!
Could someone please point out the mistake here
The simple.sh script is:
#! /bin/bash
echo hello
Thanks
Since you are doing a echo within the cron job script, you need to capture its output somewhere.
Your shebang and file mode (using chmod +x) are all right, so those aren't the issue here and running without /bin/sh should work fine.
Try using the following to see the output in cron.log file (This runs every minute)
* * * * * /home/user/simple.sh >> /home/user/cron.log
Note that cron jobs run in separate subprocess shell, with reduced environment, so its output won't be visible on your terminal.
Regarding sending of email - you need to have some mail package (like postman, mutt etc) configured for the cron daemon to send out error mails.
Do not use relative paths, but absolute ones. Also, indicate the binary running the script, that is /bin/sh (or whatever coming from which sh):
45 14 * * * /bin/sh /path/to/script/simple.sh
Maybe there shouldn't be a space in line 1 of your .sh script:
#! /bin/bash
to
#!/bin/bash
Although I could see why it would still seem to work from when invoked in an interactive shell (# could merely comment out the rest of the line).
Still, I'd guess at worst it'd merely ignore that line and inherit cron's interpreter of /bin/sh
I very very rarely use Linux and so don't have any experience with bash scripts and cron jobs.
This is in fact my first attempt. So it's probably something really simple to fix.
I have the following:
/etc/cron.d/clear-mixtape-dir.sh
permissions are: 644
#!/bin/bash
# Clears the /tmp/mixtape2 directory
rm -rf "/tmp/mixtape2/"*
My crontab file looks like so:
SHELL=/bin/bash
PATH=/sbin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin
MAILTO=root
HOME=/
*/15 * * * * /etc/cron.d/clear-mixtape-dir.sh >/dev/null 2>&1
I'm trying to execute the .sh script every 15 minutes.
Everything i've found says this should work, but it doesn't.
Does anything like file permissions (on files within /tmp/mixtape2/) matter in this case?
Or perhaps the permissions set on the actual .sh script - maybe they need setting to executable?
Any advice appreciated.
Remove the .sh extension from the script in /etc/cron.d and it will be called.
run-parts ignores files with a period in the name, so the .sh extension is preventing your script from running.
From man cron -
Files must conform to the same naming convention as used by run-parts(8): they must consist solely of upper- and lower-case letters, digits, underscores, and hyphens.
Note: These comments refer to /etc/crontab.
Before doing anything else, which cron are you accessing crontab -e or
su -vim
<your-favorite-editor> /etc/crontab
If you are using crontab -e, then no user field exists in that form of crontab. That might be why you're not running.
In your example, your user field is *. I would make it root or a user that has proper permissions.
Before running this program, I would make a dummy crontab entry that just does
echo "Hello" and runs every minute. Get that to work on which ever crontab you're editing (crontab -e or vim /etc/crontab). Then using that as a template, get your script to run.
Next, see if cron is running:
ps -ef | grep cron
If it is not running, become root and start it by enter
/etc/init.d/cron start (Ubuntu and Red Hat).
You already have a good answer suggesting you add root as the user because of a permissions problem. I'm going to suggest more things to help you debug. I have run into a lot of cron problems over the years.
1) Set the email to a known address, unless you will continually monitor root's email
SHELL=/bin/bash
PATH=/sbin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/bin
MAILTO=fred#somewhere.com
HOME=/
2) Until everything runs properly, take out the >/dev/null 2>&1 out of your cron entry, so you see the outputs in your email generated after the script runs.
3) Bump */15 down to an interval greater than it takes your script to run -- likr */5, so the script runs more often.
4) I do not know the exact reason, but scripts I run out of cron have to set up their own environments despite being run as that user in cron. This may include steps like cd /home/script-owner and running source .bashrc and calling other script(s) that set environment variables.
*/15 * * * * root /etc/cron.d/clear-mixtape-dir.sh >/dev/null 2>&1
Add user root because your permission seems to be only for root.
Asterisk check script is not running only when run by crontab, but runs by ./script.sh and sh script.sh. Here is the script:
date
asterisk -rx "show channels"
asterisk -rx "zap show channels"
Then I >> into a log file. When I run manually via ./ or sh with >> log.log it works, just not as a crontab listed as
* * * * * /root/script.sh
I have tried adding #!/bash/sh at the top of the script and only the date is shown no matter what I try. I am a noob to bash scripts and I'm trying to learn.
Since feature requests to mark a comment as an answer remain declined, I copy the above solution here.
Have you checked your path? It's almost certainly different when run under cron. (You can set PATH=... in your crontab. From the command line, type "echo $PATH" to see what you're expecting.) It might be more standard to provide full paths to date, asterisk and your log file inside script.sh (e.g., "/bin/date /path/to/asterisk ....") – mjk