Crontab - Location?

[timwebuk]

Hey, great forum. Found it very useful so, but needed to ask a question.

I've been trying to create a backup script (yup, typical cronjob question) but am having problems getting it to run. Here's what I've done so far...

Written a shell script (called mapbackup) and put it within a folder in my home/ dir:

#!/bin/bash
cp ~/files/server_level.dat ~/files/backup/level_$(date +%s)

And then I typed 'crontab -e' to edit the file and here is the contents....

# m h  dom mon dow   command
15,30,45,59 * * * * root ~/files/./mapbackup

The shell script works when I run it manually, can't figure out why the cronjob isn't working.

Any help would be great.

I'm running Ubuntu 10 (Lucid) Server Edition.

[sathiya]

ensure you have absolute path always.

[timwebuk]

Can I not use ~ in my script then? Because it is still an absolute pathway...

/home/tim/files?

[scathefire]

I typically avoid using ~, if anything use $HOME.

[timwebuk]

Afraid it still hasn't worked, even with the absolute directories. Any more ideas anyone?

Do I need to edit any other cron files within /etc/ or literally just 'crontab -e'? Does the folder I'm writing need certain permissions for cron?

The script I wrote that it calls *definitely* works, I have tested it.

[scathefire]

have you tried putting your cronjob under /etc/crontab instead of using the personal crontab? sometimes weird things happen like that.

also i don't think you should specify "root" if you are using the personal crontab, as it will run as that person. the syntax (15,30,45,59 * * * * root ~/files/./mapbackup
) should work just fine inside of /etc/crontab

however use of "." is probably not good. Cronjobs technically have no present working directory unless you specifically change to a directory when the script is executed.

[timwebuk]

I edited the crontab file in /etc/ using vi... still no luck.

Am I really misunderstanding something? It should be so simple.

[timwebuk]

OK I've got it working, thanks for your help. Found an Ubuntu guide with some troubleshooting tips so I applied them all.

When using a local user crontab (rather than root), you do not specify the user, otherwise it treats the username as the command! Pretty obvious really!

Also a crontab needs to end in a newline, lastly I added my shell script to the $PATH variable, so I didn't need to use the ./ in the command.

All is working now. Thanks again.