crontab does not execute shell scripts

Solution Verified - Updated -

Environment

  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux3/4/5
  • cron (Any version)

Issue

  • crontab does not execute sh scripts
  • The script works fine if it manually ran from either its own directory or another directory.
  • However when script added to /etc/crontab, it seems to run at the scheduled time but the results or output is null
  • According to /var/log/cron the script runs, and the permissions seem ok

Here is hte the syntax used for the entry in /etc/crontab

13 0 *** root run-parts /scripts/ftp.sh

And  the permissions on the script is :

-rwxr--r-- 1 root root 1906 May 12 10:44 /scripts/ftp.sh

Resolution

  • Either remove the run-parts or point run-parts to the directory which contains the script(s) that needs to be executed.
For example:
    13 0 *** /scripts/ftp.sh

Root Cause

  • run-parts expects a directory name which contains the script(s) as the arguments, hence pointing run-parts to a script will not work.

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