Bash Script Runs Manually but Fails on Crontab – Troubleshooting

bashcronshell

I'm a newbie to shell scripting. I have written a shell script to do incremental backup of MySQL database.The script is in executable format and runs successfully when executed manually but fails when executed through crontab.
Crontab entry is like this : */1 * * * * /home/db-backup/mysqlbackup.sh
Below is the shell script code –

 #!/bin/sh
MyUSER="root"       # USERNAME
MyPASS="password"         # PASSWORD
MyHOST="localhost"  # Hostname
Password="" #Linux Password

MYSQL="$(which mysql)"
if [ -z "$MYSQL" ]; then
echo "Error: MYSQL not found"
exit 1
fi
MYSQLADMIN="$(which mysqladmin)"
if [ -z "$MYSQLADMIN" ]; then
    echo "Error: MYSQLADMIN not found"
    exit 1
fi
CHOWN="$(which chown)"
if [ -z "$CHOWN" ]; then
    echo "Error: CHOWN not found"
    exit 1
fi
CHMOD="$(which chmod)"
if [ -z "$CHMOD" ]; then
    echo "Error: CHMOD not found"
    exit 1
fi

GZIP="$(which gzip)"
if [ -z "$GZIP" ]; then
    echo "Error: GZIP not found"
    exit 1
fi
CP="$(which cp)"
if [ -z "$CP" ]; then
    echo "Error: CP not found"
    exit 1
fi
MV="$(which mv)"
if [ -z "$MV" ]; then
    echo "Error: MV not found"
    exit 1
fi
RM="$(which rm)"
if [ -z "$RM" ]; then
    echo "Error: RM not found"
    exit 1
fi
RSYNC="$(which rsync)"
if [ -z "$RSYNC" ]; then
    echo "Error: RSYNC not found"
    exit 1
fi

MYSQLBINLOG="$(which mysqlbinlog)"
if [ -z "$MYSQLBINLOG" ]; then
    echo "Error: MYSQLBINLOG not found"
    exit 1
fi
# Get data in dd-mm-yyyy format
NOW="$(date +"%d-%m-%Y-%T")"

DEST="/home/db-backup"
mkdir $DEST/Increment_backup.$NOW
LATEST=$DEST/Increment_backup.$NOW
$MYSQLADMIN -u$MyUSER -p$MyPASS flush-logs
newestlog=`ls -d /usr/local/mysql/data/mysql-bin.?????? | sed 's/^.*\.//' | sort -g | tail -n 1`
echo $newestlog
for file in `ls /usr/local/mysql/data/mysql-bin.??????`
do
        if [ "/usr/local/mysql/data/mysql-bin.$newestlog" != "$file" ]; then
     echo $file             
     $CP "$file" $LATEST         
        fi
done
for file1 in `ls $LATEST/mysql-bin.??????`
do
 $MYSQLBINLOG $file1>$file1.$NOW.sql 
 $GZIP -9 "$file1.$NOW.sql"     
 $RM "$file1"
done
$RSYNC -avz $LATEST /home/rsync-back
  • First of all, when scheduled on crontab it is not showing any errors. How can I get to know whether the script is running or not?
  • Secondly, what is the correct way to execute the shell script in a crontab.
  • Some blogs suggest for change in environment variables. What would be the best solution

Best Answer

Scripts being ran from crontab do not always have the same environmental variables you normally take gfor granted... Do this:

Change

 #!/bin/sh

to

 #!/bin/sh -x

with -x, you may try setting PATH manually, and even kicking off /etc/profile if all else fails.

#!/bin/sh -x
PATH=/bin:/sbin:/usr/bin:/usr/sbin
/bin/sh /etc/profile
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