[ubuntu] Cronjob oddity

[Gatt]

I use the following script to create a gzipped tarball of my main website (/var/www/) and another of our extra sites with a datestamp on the file name:

 

#/bin/sh
/bin/tar -cvf /backups/websites.tar /usr/share/websites/
/bin/gzip /backups/websites.tar
mkdir -p /backups/websites/`/bin/date +%Y/%b`
/bin/mv /backups/websites.tar.gz /backups/websites/`/bin/date +%Y/%b/websites_%d-%b-%Y.tar.gz`

/bin/tar -cvf /backups/joomla.tar /var/www/
/bin/gzip /backups/joomla.tar
mkdir -p /backups/joomla/`/bin/date +%Y/%b`
/bin/mv /backups/joomla.tar.gz /backups/joomla/`/bin/date +%Y/%b/joomla_%d-%b-%Y.tar.gz`

 

When I run the script manually with

/path/to/scripts/scriptname.sh

 

It works perfectly (about 24M for Joomla, and about 1.5GB for the websites)

 

However when I run the same script via crontab, it only creates a tarball about 300k in size?

 

cronjob is:

 

@daily /path/to/scripts/scriptname.sh  #Backup all websites

 

Am stumped as to why it doesnt work as a cronjob....

[tom_newton]

cron job running as a user who cn't read those files?

[Gatt]

Nope - running as root - other cronjob runs fine - does the same thing with mysql (mysqldump, gzip with date appeneded..)

 

Wondering if cron timse out at all?

[tom_newton]

Try re-ordering it - make the directory first, and then do the tar as a one liner (add "z" to the commandline opts to make it zip automatically).

[tom_newton]

Oooh... and check that the output of "date" isn't changing while your cron is taking place. You might stick that in a variable first before use.

[powdarrmonkey]

Default installations of cron on Ubuntu mail the job output to root, unless you redirect it (which you haven't). Take a look there.

 

You also don't have a bang (!) in your shebang, line 1 (should read #!/bin/sh)

[Gatt]

Eek! good spot powdarrmonkey!!

@tom_newton - the cron job runs at 00:00 so date should have already changed before it runs!

[Gatt]

Also @ powdarrmonkey - i cant read teh system mail?? installed mutt and ran it as root and main user (the one created at install) but all empty?

[powdarrmonkey]

Check cat /var/mail/root or /var/spool/mail/root? See if it's being directed somewhere else (/dev/null is a favourite) in /etc/aliases.

[Gatt]

nothing in /var/mail or /var/spool/mail (which is ointing to /var/mail/ anyway!)

[powdarrmonkey]

Always worth a check How about /etc/aliases?

[Gatt]

root@web01:~# cat /etc/aliases
# See man 5 aliases for format
postmaster:    root
[email="root@web01"]root@web01[/email]:~#

[powdarrmonkey]

Hmm. Ubuntu folks do even more silly things than I thought.

 

In that case, redirect it to a log file yourself - in cron,

 

@daily /path/to/scripts/scriptname.sh > /var/mail/mybackup.log 2>&1 #Backup all websites

 

It will be easier to read if you do the gzip inline, as Tom suggests:

 

/bin/tar -czvf /backups/joomla.tar.gz /var/www/

 

and get rid of the calls to gzip. Add the -v (verbose) flag to your calls to mv too.

[Gatt]

can I still datestamp it that way

Would be a heck of a ot easier i admit..

 

gonna redirect it to /var/log/backups/websites.log - does it need to be >> though to append?

Edited February 16, 2010 by Gatt

[powdarrmonkey]

Yes, your mv command will still rename it, you're just combining the tar and gzip steps (why have two processes when tar can do it all? )

[Gatt]

Thanks - editted the scripts and the cron jobs now..

Will need to check them tomorrow on the way down to Unimatrix Zero .. err sorry RM HQ - lol