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Date:      Sat, 07 Jan 2012 16:43:20 +0200
From:      Kaya Saman <kayasaman@gmail.com>
To:        freebsd-questions@freebsd.org
Subject:   Re: Having problems running shell script from crontab
Message-ID:  <4F085A08.5060502@gmail.com>
In-Reply-To: <4F0856F6.1060207@infracaninophile.co.uk>
References:  <4F0838DF.40006@gmail.com> <20120107132234.31d04a1c@gumby.homeunix.com> <4F084AAD.3050301@gmail.com> <20120107135743.6aa5a6bd@gumby.homeunix.com> <4F0856F6.1060207@infracaninophile.co.uk>

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On 01/07/2012 04:30 PM, Matthew Seaman wrote:
> On 07/01/2012 13:57, RW wrote:
>> On Sat, 07 Jan 2012 15:37:49 +0200
>> Kaya Saman wrote:
>>
>> n terms of paths this is what I'm doing: I'm in a FreeBSD jail
>>> logged in by - #jexec<jail>  tcsh
>>>
>>> which gets me in as root. Crontab is being run as root so paths
>>> should be the same no?
> No -- you can't assume that.  The correct thing to do is to set $PATH
> within your script, then it should stand a much improved chance of
> running correctly irrespective of how it gets started.  Add a line like
> this near the top of the script:
>
> export PATH=/bin:/usr/bin:/sbin:/usr/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/local/sbin
>
> That should be good enough for most purposes, but feel free to modify if
> needed.
>
> Another debugging tip: add
>
>    set -x
>
> or
>
>    set -v -x
>
> towards the top of the script and you'll get a trace of what the script
> does e-mailed to you.  (Well, e-mailed to root, but I assume yould've
> been reading root's mailbox anyhow, or redirected the root e-mails to
> somewhere more useful.)
>
>> PATH is set at the top of /etc/crontab
> Well, yes.  However that only helps for the scripts run out of
> /etc/crontab.  If the OP has done the right thing and left /etc/crontab
> alone, but instead set up a root crontab by running
>
> 	# crontab -u root -e
>
> then that wouldn't help at all.
>
> 	Cheers,
>
> 	Matthew
>
>

Thanks Matthew!!! :-)


Exporting the PATH variable was the key, although I did add the 
debugging tip in for good measure.


So luckily all is solved now.



Thanks everyone for all the help and advice!


Best regards,


Kaya



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