freebsd stable - Apr 2019 - Crontab Question

Well thanks for all the input. I just have to tp keep working at it. Again, much
appreciated.


Regards
SI

Sent from Mail for Windows 10

From: Walter Cramer
Sent: Wednesday, April 10, 2019 4:40 PM
To: Software Info
Cc: Jonathan Chen; freebsd-stable at freebsd.org
Subject: RE: Crontab Question

On Wed, 10 Apr 2019, Software Info wrote:
> OK. So although the script is located in my home directory, it doesn???t 
> start there?  Sorry but I don???t quite understand. Could you explain a 
> little further please?
Both 'cp' and 'ls' are located in /bin.  But if I run the
'ls' command in
/root, 'ls' can't find 'cp' (unless I tell it where to look)
- even though
/bin *is* in my PATH -

server7:/root # ls cp
ls: cp: No such file or directory
server7:/root # ls /bin/cp
/bin/cp

Where the system looks for *commands*, to execute, is different from where 
it looks for other files, which those commands use.  The latter is 
generally only the current directory (unless you tell it otherwise). 
When cron runs a script as root, "current directory" will be /root.

BUT - for security and other reasons, it would be better to have cron run 
your script as you (not root), and as '/home/me/myscript' (instead of 
adding your home directory to PATH in /etc/crontab).

-Walter

In your script put a few commands outputting to a check file

pwd > /tmp/checkfile

Add a few more like 

ENV >> /tmp/checkfile

Just to make sure it really is in the directory you expect with the environment
you expect.

If you want it to be run as you never use the root crontab unless you want
really crap security.

Cheers


Sent from my iPad
> On 11 Apr 2019, at 16:29, Software Info <softwareinfojam at
gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> Well thanks for all the input. I just have to tp keep working at it. Again,
much appreciated.
> 
> 
> Regards
> SI
> 
> Sent from Mail for Windows 10
> 
> From: Walter Cramer
> Sent: Wednesday, April 10, 2019 4:40 PM
> To: Software Info
> Cc: Jonathan Chen; freebsd-stable at freebsd.org
> Subject: RE: Crontab Question
> 
>> On Wed, 10 Apr 2019, Software Info wrote:
>> 
>> OK. So although the script is located in my home directory, it
doesn???t
>> start there?  Sorry but I don???t quite understand. Could you explain a
>> little further please?
> 
> Both 'cp' and 'ls' are located in /bin.  But if I run the
'ls' command in
> /root, 'ls' can't find 'cp' (unless I tell it where to
look) - even though
> /bin *is* in my PATH -
> 
> server7:/root # ls cp
> ls: cp: No such file or directory
> server7:/root # ls /bin/cp
> /bin/cp
> 
> Where the system looks for *commands*, to execute, is different from where 
> it looks for other files, which those commands use.  The latter is 
> generally only the current directory (unless you tell it otherwise). 
> When cron runs a script as root, "current directory" will be
/root.
> 
> BUT - for security and other reasons, it would be better to have cron run 
> your script as you (not root), and as '/home/me/myscript' (instead
of
> adding your home directory to PATH in /etc/crontab).
> 
> -Walter
> 
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