Re: FW: Crontab problems

Tom Gillon wrote:
> Hi, thanks for the quick reply.
> 
> Here's the crontab entry:
> 
> 0 2 * * * /home/webct/webct_backup
> 
> Here's the contents of the webct_backup file that crontab is calling:
> 
> cd /home/webct/webct/webct/generic/admin
> perl admin.pl batch `ls ../../courses/`
> 
> I don't get an error, it just doesn't complete the backup when run from
> crontab.  It starts the backup process, but ends very early during the
> process.  However, when run from the command line, the admin.pl script
> works fine.  This worked fine in Red Hat 6.2, but since I upgrade to 7.0
> (new hard drive, fresh install), it doesn't work.
> 
> Perhaps there is something in the webct_backup file that is not allowed
> by the cron process?

You could do a couple of things to get more information about what is 
going wrong.  Change your crontab entry to something like this:

0 2 * * * /home/webct/webct_backup &> /home/webct/webct_backup.log

and edit /home/webct/webct_backup, and create/change the first line to 
something like this:

#!/bin/bash -x

That should allow you to see where it is failing.

Forrest
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