help with crontab please

[lancebermudez]

I have 2 cron job on is

crontab -e
0 0 * * * avast-update
0 12 * * * avast-update

this above one works the one below not at all

sudo crontab -e
0 3 * * * apt-get update & apt-get dist-upgrade
0 15 * * * apt-get update & apt-get dist-upgrade

i have even restrated my computer after i have saved the crontab. anyone have any idea why my jobs are not running? I'm new to this.

[nmset]

0 15 * * * apt-get update && apt-get dist-upgrade

or

0 15 * * * apt-get update ; apt-get dist-upgrade

From bash man pages

If a command is terminated by the control operator &, the shell executes the command in the background in a subshell. The shell does not wait for the command to finish, and the return status is 0. Commands separated by a ; are executed sequentially; the shell waits for each command to terminate in turn. The return status is the exit status of the last command executed.

It seems & must be a terminating control operator.

Just try in a terminal :

ls &
ls & free
ls && free
ls ; free

I didn't try the above with cron.

[lancebermudez]

im still having trouble getting this to work. my file says that it is saved into some place called /tmp/crontab. but when i go to see if their is a file in /tmp/.crontab i see nothing and my cron jobs do not work

sudo crontab -e
0 3 * * * apt-get update && apt-get dist-upgrade -y
0 15 * * * apt-get update && apt-get dist-upgrade -y

even if i do
sudo crontab -e
0 3 * * * apt-get update ; apt-get dist-upgrade -y
0 15 * * * apt-get update ; apt-get dist-upgrade -y

[nmset]

Either specify the full path to your programs or define the PATH variable at the beginning of the cron job. You'll perhaps have to define the SHELL variable too. The cron job is found in /var/spool/cron, but you don't have to worry about that.

PATH="/bin:/usr/bin:/usr/local/bin" #JUST AN EXAMPLE
SHELL="/bin/bash"
...
...

[lancebermudez]

you mean like this please look at my attached pic

[nmset]

Not readable !

[lancebermudez]

i hope this pic is better

[nmset]

Why don't you just copy/paste the data ?

You have a typo at /bin/bach -> /bin/bash
You may complete your PATH variable to be exactly the environment PATH one.
You don't need sudo if it's root cron job.

[lancebermudez]

You may complete your PATH variable to be exactly the environment PATH one.
i do not know what you are talking about

acer@kacer:~$ sudo crontab -e

PATH ="/bin:/usr/bin:/usr/local/bin"
SHELL="bin/bash"
0 16 * * * apt-get update && apt-get dist-upgrade -y # JOB_ID_1
0 12 * * * apt-get update && apt-get dist-upgrade

[nmset]

In a shell, get the environment PATH variable content :

echo $PATH

and set the cron PATH variable accordingly.

You have one more typo : bin/bash -> /bin/bash

There'll be no valid reason left for this cron job to fail.