Linux – How to execute shell script via crontab

crontablinux

I have a notify.sh script that looks like:

notify-send "hi welcome"

My crontab notification for 2 PM:

0 14 * * * home/hacks/notify.sh

However, this doesn't work. What is the problem?

Best Answer

Your script is missing a #! line at the start, which is the magic interpreted by the kernel to say which command interpreter is to be used for the script.

Make it look like this:

#!/bin/sh
notify-send "hi welcome"

and make sure the script is executable:

ls -l home/hacks/notify.sh
chmod +x home/hacks/notify.sh
ls -l home/hacks/notify.sh

Also, since you're asking for this to happen just once a day, is the timezone of the crontab the same as your own timezone? You might find this happening at 2pm GMT.

Related Solutions

Shell script works directly, but has a syntax error via crontab

As John mentioned, it is a matter of your script being interpreted differently in the two environments (using /bin/sh under cron, and using your existing shell, which is probably /bin/bash when you source it in directly). Actually, /bin/sh is usually just a symlink to /bin/bash, and the bash executable behaves differently depending on the name under which it was invoked, but that's just an aside.

Here, the easiest way to fix your issue is probably just to specify

/bin/bash /home/hookedonwinter/bin/auto_git_push.sh

as the command to run under cron.

Best Answer

Related Solutions

Shell script works directly, but has a syntax error via crontab

Related Question