Ubuntu – What’s the difference between /etc/cron.hourly and crontab -e

bashcronscripts

What's the difference between creating a script in

/etc/cron.hourly/myScript

Or adding the script in crontab -e with:

# m h  dom mon dow   command
0 * * * * myScript

When I run crontab -l or sudo crontab -l I don't see the scripts created in /etc/cron.*

Is there any advantage of using one or the other?

Best Answer

User crontab files (the kind produced by non-root crontab -e) are stored in /var/spool/cron/crontabs/<user>. root cron jobs are run through /etc/cron.hourly, /etc/cron.daily, /etc/cron.weekly and /etc/cron.monthly, and controlled via /etc/crontab. The comments at the top of /etc/crontab say:

# /etc/crontab: system-wide crontab
# Unlike any other crontab you don't have to run the `crontab'
# command to install the new version when you edit this file
# and files in /etc/cron.d. These files also have username fields,
# that none of the other crontabs do.

Related Solutions

Ubuntu – Script not running in crontab, file not found

Try

sudo ln -s /usr/local/hdf5/lib/libhdf5.so.8 /usr/local/lib/
sudo ln -s /usr/local/hdf5/lib/libhdf5.so.8 /usr/lib/

That's the general way for adding something inside PATH.

Also, for check, use

ldd /usr/local/rams60/build/fdgrib2/fdgrib2

This command will show what's missing in your libraries.

Ubuntu – How to set up an hourly Cron job to run `grive` from `/etc/cron.hourly`

Aside from the unquoted whitespace in your original script (which you seem to have corrected) the issue is likely with the naming of your script.

According to the DEBIAN SPECIFIC section of man cron:

   As  described  above, the files under these directories have to be pass
   some sanity checks including the following: be executable, be owned  by
   root,  not  be  writable  by  group or other and, if symlinks, point to
   files owned by root. Additionally, the file names must conform  to  the
   filename  requirements  of  run-parts: they must be entirely made up of
   letters, digits and can only  contain  the  special  signs  underscores
   ('_')  and  hyphens  ('-').  Any  file  that  does not conform to these
   requirements will not be executed by run-parts.  For example, any  file
   containing  dots  will  be  ignored.  This is done to prevent cron from
   running any of the files that are left by the Debian package management
   system when handling files in /etc/cron.d/ as configuration files (i.e.
   files ending in .dpkg-dist, .dpkg-orig, and .dpkg-new).

Since grive.sh has a dot in its name, run-parts will ignore it.

Best Answer

Related Solutions

Ubuntu – Script not running in crontab, file not found

Ubuntu – How to set up an hourly Cron job to run `grive` from `/etc/cron.hourly`

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