Crontab command not running

I have a database backup command that takes a mysql dump and then uploads that dump file to AWS S3, when I run the command as a normal user it works perfectly but when I use the same command in a cron job it fails.

I have checked the syslog and there is no error message saying there was a problem after the job. There is only a line saying the job is run and then goes on to run the next cron job.

The command is as follows, I have removed the sensitive parts:

mysqldump -u {{ db_user }} -p{{ db_password }} {{ db_name }} > /home/db_backup.sql | aws s3 cp /home/db_backup.sql s3://{{ s3_url }}/$(date --iso-8601=seconds)_db.sql --profile backupprofile

When this command is run by a normal user there is a warning output not to use the the mysql password in command line but this is essential for the command to work without interaction. There is also a second line ofor the S3 to say that the upload worked. Could these outputs be effecting the cronjob is someway?

Upvotes: 0

Answers (3)

Mr Kashyap

Reputation: 584

Try checking the the environment variable, cron passes a minimal set of environment variables to your jobs. You can set the PATH easily inside crontab

PATH=/usr/local/bin:/usr/sbin

Also many cron execute command using sh, and you might be using another shell in your script . You can tell cron to run all commands in bash by setting the shell at the top of your crontab:

SHELL=/bin/bash

Cron tries to interpret % symbol, you need to escape it if you have that somewhr in your command.

Upvotes: 1

CAJOGOS

Reputation: 190

You will need to have full paths on your cronjobs, I see you missed them out on mysqldump and also your aws for the connection URL. I would do whereis mysqldump and whereis aws to find which full path you need to run it.