Crontab Question

[Willem Offermans]

Dear FreeBSD friends,

Yes, specifying whole directories is a bit counterintuitive, but you get used to it.
To me it became part of crontab, with only a vague understanding of why.
Probably all of us went through this process of incorporation once.


Wiel Offermans
Willem at Offermans.Rompen.nl




> On 12 Apr 2019, at 00:38, Software Info <softwareinfojam at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> Thanks so much for all the replies. It was true that I had to hardcode every path but thankfully it is working now. Really appreciate the assistance.
> 
> 
> Kind Regards
> SI
> 
> 
> 
> From: Richard Mackerras
> Sent: Thursday, April 11, 2019 11:53 AM
> To: Software Info
> Cc: Walter Cramer; freebsd-stable at freebsd.org; Jonathan Chen
> Subject: Re: Crontab Question
> 
> In your script put a few commands outputting to a check file
> 
> pwd > /tmp/checkfile
> 
> Add a few more like 
> 
> ENV >> /tmp/checkfile
> 
> Just to make sure it really is in the directory you expect with the environment you expect. 
> 
> If you want it to be run as you never use the root crontab unless you want really crap security. 
> 
> Cheers
> 
> 
> Sent from my iPad
> 
>> On 11 Apr 2019, at 16:29, Software Info <softwareinfojam at gmail.com> wrote:
>> 
>> Well thanks for all the input. I just have to tp keep working at it. Again, much appreciated.
>> 
>> 
>> Regards
>> SI
>> 
>> Sent from Mail for Windows 10
>> 
>> From: Walter Cramer
>> Sent: Wednesday, April 10, 2019 4:40 PM
>> To: Software Info
>> Cc: Jonathan Chen; freebsd-stable at freebsd.org
>> Subject: RE: Crontab Question
>> 
>>> 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
>> 
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