Mail Archives: cygwin/2008/10/20/13:25:30
----- Original Message -----
From: "Jörg Schreiber"
To: cygwin AT cygwin DOT com
Sent: Monday, October 20, 2008 11:31 AM
Subject: Problems with cron
Hi,
I've installed cygwin and I'm very pleased with it. Now I want to use
cron to run some kind of backup script where I need the possibilities
of a real shell (not DOS). After installing cron and ssmtp I first got
e-mails from cron. It seems to run, but since I've started cron as a
service (2008/10/17) it didn't work anymore and I don't know what
"can't cd to HOME" means. The HOME environment variable is set and
nothing was changed between 16th and 17th.
*********
That's weird. The cron daemon is running as yourself, so access to network drives
should not be a problem (HOME = /cygdrive/h, I presume).
One explanation is that h: is not accessible to you when running as a service.
This can be confirmed by the following test, which does not involve cron at all.
1) Create a shell script:
~: cat > c:/testit
env
pwd
cd /cygdrive/h <== use whatever is proper
pwd
<ctrl-D>
2) Create and run a "test" service under yourself
~: cygrunsrv -I test -u p-humblet -p /bin/sh -a c:/testit <== use your name
Enter password of user:
Reenter, please:
~: cygrunsrv -S test
cygrunsrv: Error starting a service: QueryServiceStatus: Win32 error 1062:
The service has not been started. <== don't
worry about this
3) Look at the output
~: cat /var/log/test.log
Alternatively run the following service, which tries to ls your HOME,
cygrunsrv -I ls -u p-humblet -p /bin/ls -a $HOME
Start it and look at /var/log/ls.log
Note that it may make a difference if you specify your HOME as a drive (/cygdrive/h)
or as a network path //computer/share.
I have just tested at my work, where my Windows home is U: I cannot use it from a service.
However I can use the expanded path (which is listed in /etc/passwd, and used as default by
cron)
You may want to try changing that before running the tests above.
If the explanation holds, you have a choice between talking to your administrator or creating
a HOME on a local disk. From there you may be able to access your real HOME with "net use ..."
I have also noticed that your group is listed as mkpasswd-l-d. Thus the group and passwd file
my not have been properly installed. Perhaps if they were, you would not need to specify HOME.
Pierre
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