Crontab in ESX server

[Mahoushi]

I made this script to backup my VMs to a tape device, ran it, works perfectly (though it takes a little time to compress the files), but then when I want to add it to automatically run this script once per day I go and type:

\# crontab -e

then I write the needed info to make my script run everyday at 20:00 but it wont run at that time... (wont run at all unless I manually run it).

Anything that I am missing? maybe I should have configured my ESX in some way to make cron work?

Any help appreciated.

[murreyaw]

Use the cron.daily stuff, rather than root's individual crontab.

[admin]

No configuration to make cron work and no problem with using roots cronttab, it's probably just a syntax error, can you post the contents of your cronttab file?

[Mahoushi]

Mmm yah I said everyday, really meant every weekday (Monday - Friday).

I am not sure its a syntax error, in any case I just copied and pasted the result from my "pwd" command. I looks like this now:

0 20 * * 1-5 /vmfs/volumes/that_big_string_of_numbers_and_characters/backup_script_dir/my_backup_script

[bertdb]

wouldn't it be better to put your backup script in /usr/local/bin or in /root/bin rather than in your vmfs ?

You can check whether the cron daemon started your script or not by looking at /var/log/cron

That way, you can eliminate script errors (first make sure cron starts the script, then make sure your script does its job)

[msgertz]

You may also want to redirect your output and errors to a file as follows:

00 01 * * 0-6 /usr/local/bin/AllBkup > /tmp/AllBkup.log 2>&1

This helps when you are having problems in a script. I also agree that your script should go in a script directory like /usr/local/bin.

[DFATAnt]

I have a similar problem. I have a script located in /root that runs fine when I run it manually. When I use crontab to run it, the script doesn't work. If I move the script to /tmp and use crontab to execute it, the script runs. I am wondering what I am missing.

Ant

[Henry_T_]

Mahousihi,

the problem could be that the crontab doesn't run \{HOMEDIR}/.bashrc and /etc/bashrc. these are the 'autoexec' when you login. For example it has the aliasses for rm (alias rm='rm -i') you're PATH is set.

What you could do is start your script with:

. /etc/bahrsrc

Than all the variables will be known to the script.

if you don't use logging look in the mail from the user where you're crontab resides

Hope this helps!

regards Henry T.

[Mahoushi]

Well, I found out that cron waits until the minute change to actually reload, so my "cron tests" never ran >.<

Anyway after I figured that out I managed to see that there was a path error in the script log files (no wonder I wasn't finding them). With the logs at hand I managed to correct the problem of the script. Also, I moved it to /root/script_directory and it seems to run pretty well now.

Thanks all