Re: [SLUG] cron troubles

[Howard Lowndes <lannet@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Wed, 11 Dec 2002, Peter Chubb wrote:

> >>>>> "Howard" == Howard Lowndes <lannet@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> writes:
>
> Howard> I have one box that has a problem running cron jobs.  The jobs
> Howard> start OK, but never complete.  If I run the job from the
> Howard> command line then the job runs OK, so it's not a problem with
> Howard> the command script, but with crond.
>
> The only time I've had that problem was when the job was assuming that
> stdin was a tty.  Cron (I think) closes stdin.
>
> Does the job run if you redirect its stdin  to /dev/null ??
> Does it hang on the command line if you close stdin? ( sh job <&- )

It looks like you have something there Peter.  At the command line:

job				<-runs OK
sh job				<-runs OK
job <&-				<-hangs
sh job <&-			<-hangs

When I do Crtl-C to break the hanging jobs then that seems to release them
and they complete.

This particular job has a piece in it which goes and does an ssh and an
scp to another box as part of the script.  The script used to work, but I
think has been broken since I upgraded the other box.  The ssh and the scp
are under unpassworded keys so it shouldn't be looking for stdin anyway.

Any ideas on how to fix it?  I have tried both the -n and the -o
"BatchMode yes" options to ssh without success.

-- 
Howard.
LANNet Computing Associates - Your Linux people
Contact detail at http://www.lannetlinux.com
"Flatter government, not fatter government." - me
 Get rid of the Australian states.
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