UBB.Developers Forums UBB.threads 7 Development How Do I? help with CRON pls, namely doexpire.pl

i tried to set it up, but didnt succeed.
i keep getting this message in my e-mail inbox.
root: not found

help?

What's the entry in your crontab for running doexpire.pl?

my file is called cronjobs and it's located in the root directory.
this is whats inside it.

0 2 * * * root /usr/local/etc/httpd/htdocs/ubbthreads/cron/php/doexpire.pl
0 1 * * * /usr/local/bin/vnukelog



i've also got a file below it called crontab.save and inside it is this

0 2 * * * root
/usr/local/etc/httpd/htdocs/ubbthreads/cron/php/doexpire.pl

logout

Try removing "root" from the entry. I don't know why Infopop's documentation says to put that in.

P.S. This is my 700th post, so I'm now an "old hand"

lol oldhand!
ok, i'll give that a go and get back to you 2moro once the time has reached for it to carry out the task.

[]P.S. This is my 700th post, so I'm now an "old hand"

[/]

Congrats Old Hand!

ok, that didn't work.
whats next?

btw, when i get the e-mail saying it dont work, this is always in the subject line, if it's any help.
Cron <nickjenk> root /usr/local/etc/httpd/htdocs/ubbthreads/cron/php/doexpire.pl

Are you sure you removed the "root" from the crontab entry?

positive
although my file is called cronjobs not crontab, that make a difference?

Hmmmm ...... If "root" isn't in the cron table entry, then I don't know where it's getting the "root" from.

On my server (Linux Redhat 7.0), I set up cron jobs using the crontab command. For example, crontab -l lists the cron table for the current user, and crontab FILENAME rebuilds the cron table from the text file FILENAME. Maybe it works differently on your server.

If no one else has any ideas here, you might try asking in the UBB.threads How Do I? or Installation Assistance forum at Infopop Community.

hmmm, thats strange.
i just did the command crontab -l and it still says tjhe "root" bit is there.
but i just downloaded the file to check.
do i need to re-run something?

my bad!
i didnt rebuild it
it now says what it should
i'll let u know 2moro whether it was a success or not!

well, we're getting somewhere!!

this is the report as of this morning

usr/local/etc/httpd/htdocs/ubbthreads/cron/php/doexpire.pl: permission denied


what does it mean? (apart from that access was denied )

I am NOT the cron job expert. Somehow I got it working on my server. LOL

But, Can you successfully run the file from the command line?

I'd check that first... make sure it runs for you. That'll narrow down if it's a permission thing, or a cron job thing.

how would i run it from command line?
whats the command?

Try changing the cron table entry to:

0 2 * * * perl /usr/local/etc/httpd/htdocs/ubbthreads/cron/php/doexpire.pl

that doesnt work
Can't open perl script "/usr/local/etc/httpd/htdocs/ubbthreads/cron/php/doexpire.pl": Permission denied

[]how would i run it from command line?
whats the command?
[/]

If you've got telnet or SSH access to the server... you could go into that directory and type doexpire.pl at the prompt to see if you can run it.

If not, it's most likely a permissions thing.

[]/usr/local/etc/httpd/htdocs/ubbthreads/cron/php/doexpire.pl[/]
Actually looking at your command......
Are you allowed to have doexpire.pl inside the PHP directory.... in other words... on your server can you run perl scrips outside of the cgi-bin directory.

Some hosts don't let Perl scripts run elsewhere.

Or should you be running doexpire.php???
What file(s) is actually in the /ubbthreads/cron/php directory?

ahhhh, well spotted joshpet!
i had php/doexpire.pl
no such thing!

so i've amended it to php/doexpire.php

and guess what, it wont bloody install!

i'm now completley stumped.

This is what is in my cronjobs file

[] 0 2 * * * /usr/local/etc/httpd/htdocs/ubbthreads/cron/php/doexpire.php
0 1 * * * /usr/local/bin/vnukelog [/]


and this is the error message i'm getting from telnet

[] "cronjobs":3: bad day-of-month
crontab: errors in crontab file, can't install[/]

wtf??

You're not very good at this cron stuff, are you.

Maybe should just get up at 2AM every day, and run the script manually.

P.S. Congrats to Josh for spotting that error. I never noticed the discrepency between the .pl file extension and the php subdirectory.

lol, u could write what i know about cron on the back of a stamp!

sooo, any clues as to why it's not letting me compile? (if thats the right word)

ok, managed it
i deleted the original crontab, removed it from the server.
uploaded new one, and it installed.
will find out later if it works or not!

<fingers crossed in suspense >

and no, permission denied.

Can you run

yourdomain/ubbthreads/cron/php/doexpire.php in your browser?
You wont' receive any output... but it would tell you if permissions into those directories was correct.

Check the permissions not only on the file.. but make sure the permissions for those directories are allowing you to access it as well.

Otherwise... I give us.

<shrug>

Are you sure that the PHP static module, as well as the PHP Apache DSO, is installed on your server? What happens if you type "php -v" from the command line (telnet)?

if i type php -v i get:
php: command not found

how do i run something from the command line joshpet?
i know it's not run, i just tried!
I went to the cron/php folder and typed in doexpire.php and i got command not found.

if i type php -v i get:
php: command not found

Ok, that means that either the static PHP binary is not installed on your server, or else it's not in the default path.

What happens when you use the command "which php"?

lol, all these questions i ask has turned me into a journeyman!
anyway, when i type in which php i get:
php: command not found
(surprise surprise, this is turning out to be the story of my life!
"Monkeyra and his lost commands!")

I'd say you have two choices.

1) Download the PHP distribution from php.net and install it as a static executable. That would allow you to run PHP from the command line or from the cron table. The distribution includes documentation, but if you need additional help with that, I think there's some documentation on the Infopop Community site.

2) Use the Perl version doexpire.pl, assuming you have Perl installed. Run "perl -v" to check that.

perl -v works!
i'll go try that now!
(pleaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaase!)

[]I went to the cron/php folder and typed in doexpire.php and i got command not found.
[/]

That would be running it. Simply typing in the command yourself.

I don't understand if the doexpire.php is in that directory.... why it would say "command not found".... unless that's "doexpire" running and failing with some command.

Dave is probably the expert here. I am truly the novice with Cron jobs... but have a few tricks to check which sometimes work.

To run doexpire.php from the command line, you would type in "php doexpire.php". At least, that's how I do it on my server. Of course, that won't work in this case, since the command-line version of PHP is apparently not installed on the server.

i cant get my cronjob to install now!
this is doing my nut!!
can you guys see anything worng with these two lines?


[] * 1 * * * /usr/local/etc/httpd/htdocs/ubbthreads/cron/perl/doexpire.pl
* 2 * * * /usr/local/bin/vnukelog [/]

The reason it says command not found when trying to run a program in the current directory from the command line is most probably because the current directory isn't in the path. Putting "./" in front of the command changes that, like so:
./doexpire.php

But in this case it won't work anyway, since php-scripts have to be run via the php binary as stated before.

Maybe it doesn't like that you are using * for minutes, that means it will run every minute. Either way, it isn't a good idea to run the scripts so often, so you should start with a 0, like this:

0 1 * * * /usr/local/etc/httpd/htdocs/ubbthreads/cron/perl/doexpire.pl

Have you made sure that the above command is working from the command-line? It's always a good thing to try that out first to rule out misspellings in paths or permission problems on the script.

that doesnt work either!
i'm at a loss to understand why, it installed ok a few days ago
i cant run from command either, i just tried
i get command not found.
although perl -v works

"perl doexpire.pl" doesn't work?