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I'm having trouble making a python script run via cronjob.

I can run the python script (it's supposed to connect to a database, pull a few records, save that to a csv, then email it) manually just fine. However, I can't get it to run. It's supposed to run every minute, for testing.

Here's the line in the crontab -e:

* * * * * /usr/bin/python /appl/belo_monthly/belo_monthly.py > /appl/belo_monthly/results.log

I've used chmod -x on the file. I've also tried to write out the print lines of the file to a log. None are working - won't even create .log file.

The python file has #!/usr/bin/python at the very top.

What I tried:

I looked it up here, and found this: Python script not running as cronjob

Using that as a reference:

  1. Yup, cron daemon is running. pidof cron returns a value.
  2. A lot of other services depend on this, so I can't restart it.
  3. sudo tail -f /var/log/syslog gets me the following:

Mar 31 10:21:01 ip-XX-XXX-XXX-XX CRON[30223]: (ubuntu) CMD (/usr/bin/python /appl/belo_monthly/belo_monthly.py > /appl/belo_monthly/results.log)

And it adds another line like that a minute later.

  1. Finally, I tried this: sudo strace -f -p pidof cron. Which returned this:

execve("/bin/sh", ["/bin/sh", "-c", "/usr/bin/python /appl/belo_month"...], [/* 6 vars */]) = 0

And then some garbled mess of text later, this:

open("/appl/belo_monthly/results.log", O_WRONLY|O_CREAT|O_TRUNC, 0666) = -1 EACCES (Permission denied)
write(2, "/bin/sh: 1: ", 12) = 12
write(2, "cannot create /appl/belo_monthly"..., 63) = 63
write(2, "\n", 1)           = 1
exit_group(2)

So I'm thinking, it can't create a log. But what about the python script? What happened?

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  • Try this, stackoverflow.com/questions/8727935/… Hope this could solve your problem.
    – Vengat
    Commented Apr 1, 2015 at 5:19
  • I'm not sure as to what to try from that question and answer. The cron is working, and I can google how to setup the frequency correctly. For reference, I'm already using #!/usr/bin/python at the top of my python files.
    – zack_falcon
    Commented Apr 1, 2015 at 7:35

1 Answer 1

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won't even create .log file

Does the user you set the cronjob for have write access to /appl/belo_monthly/results.log? Did you create the cronjob as regular user or as root?

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  • I didn't create the cronjob, unfortunately. I don't need to use sudo when editing it, and using root via sudo su and doing crontab -e creates a new, empty cron if it means anything.
    – zack_falcon
    Commented Apr 1, 2015 at 7:08
  • I added a sudo to the command in the cron job. Finally worked. Though I understand there are / could be some security issues regarding this.
    – zack_falcon
    Commented Apr 1, 2015 at 7:43

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