Linux – How to get the output of a cron script run from the home directory

Sudo has some special options in it's permissions file, one of which allows a restriction on it's usage to shells that are are running inside a TTY, which cron is not.

Some distros including the Amazon Linux AMI have this enabled by default. The /etc/sudoers file will look something like this:

# Disable "ssh hostname sudo <cmd>", because it will show the password in clear.
#         You have to run "ssh -t hostname sudo <cmd>".
#
Defaults    requiretty

#
# Refuse to run if unable to disable echo on the tty. This setting should also be
# changed in order to be able to use sudo without a tty. See requiretty above.
#
Defaults   !visiblepw

If you had captured output to STDERR at the level of the shell script rather than the sudo command itself, you would have seem a message something like this:

sorry, you must have a tty to run sudo

The solution is to allow sudo to execute in non TTY environments either by removing or commenting out these options:

#Defaults    requiretty
#Defaults   !visiblepw

You can source the file you want at the top of the script or beginning of the job for the user that is executing the job. The "source" command is a built-in. You'd do the same thing if you made edits to those files to load the changes.

* * * * * source /home/user/.bash_profile; <command>

or

#!/bin/bash
source /home/user/.bash_profile

<commands>