Postgresql pg_dump not working with anacron (cron.daily) on Ubuntu 18.04

Question

I have two files called lb and z-backup. z-backup is a sh script placed in cron.daily which calls the lb (sh) script as an anacron job.

These are the files and their locations:

ls -l ~/bin/lb -rwxrwxr-x 1 chh1 chh1 1300 Oct 23 11:56 /home/chh1/bin/lb

ls -l /etc/cron.daily/z-backup -rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 141 Oct 23 12:29 /etc/cron.daily/z-backup

The content of lb is:

#!/bin/sh

pg_dump -h localhost -p 5432 -U postgres -d crewdb -w -C -F p -b -f ~/Dropbox/postgres_backup/crewdb.backup.sql >/home/chh1/Desktop/pg_dump_log 2>&1

exit

The content of z-backup is:

#!/bin/sh

set -e

# Anacron script to run a daily backup at boot time.

exec /home/chh1/bin/lb >>/home/chh1/Desktop/anacron_log 2>&1

exit

When I run the following command I get an error message:

sudo run-parts /etc/cron.daily
run-parts: /etc/cron.daily/z-backup exited with return code 1

The anacron_log created from the z-backup script is empty:

cat ~/Desktop/anacron_log
<<there is not message>>

The pg_dump_log created from the lb script shows an error message:

cat ~/Desktop/pg_dump_log
pg_dump: [archiver (db)] connection to database "crewdb" failed: fe_sendauth: no password supplied

Other information

cat ~/.pgpass && ls -la ~/.pgpass
# hostname:port:database:username:password
*:*:crewdb:*:xDf&&li@
-rw------- 1 chh1 chh1 68 Oct 23 11:09 .pgpass

sudo cat /.pgpass && ls -la /.pgpass
# hostname:port:database:username:password
*:*:crewdb:*:xDf&&li@
-rw------- 1 root root 68 Oct 21 10:39 /.pgpass

Unix user: chh1
Database name: crewdb
Postgresql superuser: postgres

                                 List of databases
   Name    |  Owner   | Encoding |   Collate   |    Ctype    |   Access privileges   
-----------+----------+----------+-------------+-------------+-----------------------
 crewdb    | postgres | UTF8     | en_NZ.UTF-8 | en_NZ.UTF-8 | =Tc/postgres         +
           |          |          |             |             | postgres=CTc/postgres+
           |          |          |             |             | chh1=CTc/postgres
 postgres  | postgres | UTF8     | en_NZ.UTF-8 | en_NZ.UTF-8 | 
 template0 | postgres | UTF8     | en_NZ.UTF-8 | en_NZ.UTF-8 | =c/postgres          +
           |          |          |             |             | postgres=CTc/postgres
 template1 | postgres | UTF8     | en_NZ.UTF-8 | en_NZ.UTF-8 | =c/postgres          +
           |          |          |             |             | postgres=CTc/postgres

echo "PATH=$PATH:/usr/lib/postgresql/10/bin
      export PATH" >> .profile

sudo grep ^[^#] /etc/postgresql/10/main/pg_hba.conf
[sudo] password for chh1: 
local   all             postgres                                md5 
local   all             all                                     peer 
host    all             all             127.0.0.1/32            md5
host    all             all             ::1/128                 md5
local   replication     all                                     peer
host    replication     all             127.0.0.1/32            md5
host    replication     all             ::1/128                 md5

I have no clue how to resolve the error message in pg_dump_log and get the anacron job to work properly. When I run the lb script from the terminal the Postgresql backup goes ahead just fine. Does anyone have a clue why this does not work. I much appreciate your help.

Answer 1

I found the answer. I changed the pg_hba.conf file off to:

[sudo] password for chh1: 
local   all             all                                     trust 
local   all             all                                     trust
host    all             all             127.0.0.1/32            trust
host    all             all             ::1/128                 md5
local   replication     all                                     md5
host    replication     all             127.0.0.1/32            md5
host    replication     all             ::1/128                 md5

Now everything works fine with anacron.