Crontab Question

[Walter Cramer]

On Wed, 10 Apr 2019, Software Info wrote:

> OK. So although the script is located in my home directory, it doesn’t 
> start there?  Sorry but I don’t quite understand. Could you explain a 
> little further please?

Both 'cp' and 'ls' are located in /bin.  But if I run the 'ls' command in 
/root, 'ls' can't find 'cp' (unless I tell it where to look) - even though 
/bin *is* in my PATH -

server7:/root # ls cp
ls: cp: No such file or directory
server7:/root # ls /bin/cp
/bin/cp

Where the system looks for *commands*, to execute, is different from where 
it looks for other files, which those commands use.  The latter is 
generally only the current directory (unless you tell it otherwise). 
When cron runs a script as root, "current directory" will be /root.

BUT - for security and other reasons, it would be better to have cron run 
your script as you (not root), and as '/home/me/myscript' (instead of 
adding your home directory to PATH in /etc/crontab).

-Walter