How to get CRON to call in the correct PATHs

Question

I m trying to get cron to call in the correct PATHs  When I run a Python script from shell the script runs fine as it uses the PATHs set in bashrc but when I use cron all the PATHs are not used from bashrc  Is there a file I can enter the PATHs into for cron like bashrc or a way to call the PATHs from bashrc   Sorry I don t think I worded this correctly  I can get the correct script to run  meaning the PATH to the script in crontab is not the problem here   it s just when that script is running I run a build and this uses the PATHs set in  bashrc  When I run the script when I m logged in  the  bashrc PATHs are pulled in  Since cron doesn t run in a shell per say it does not pull in  bashrc  Is there a way of pulling this in without having to write a bash script wrapper

User · Answer

If you don t want to have to make the same edits in various places  then roughly do this                home username  bashrc  amp  amp  yourcommand all of your args   The   space and then the path to  bashrc and the  amp  amp  command are the magic there to get your environment changes into the running bash shell  Too  if you really want the shell to be bash  it is a good idea to have a line in your crontab   SHELL  bin bash   Hope it helps someone

User · Answer

The simplest workaround I ve found looks like this             root su -l -c command   This example invokes su as root user and starts the shell with the user s full environment  including  PATH  set as if they were logged in  It works the same on different distros  is more reliable than sourcing  bashrc  which hasn t worked for me  and avoids hardcoding specific paths which can be a problem if you re providing an example or setup tool and don t know what distro or file layout on the user s system   You can also specify the username after su if you want a different user than root  but you should probably leave the root parameter before su command since this ensures su has sufficient privileges to switch to any user you specify

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The default environment for cron jobs is very sparse and may be very different from the environment you develop your python scripts in  For a script that might be run in cron  any environment that you depend on should be set explicitly  In the cron file itself  include full paths to python executables and to your python scripts

User · Answer

I used  etc crontab  I used vi and entered in the PATHs I needed into this file and ran it as root  The normal crontab overwrites PATHs that you have set up  A good tutorial on how to do this   The systemwide cron file looks like this   This has the username field  as used by  etc crontab     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    This file also has a username field  that none of the other crontabs do   SHELL  bin sh PATH  usr local sbin  usr local bin  sbin  bin  usr sbin  usr bin    m h dom mon dow user   command 42 6         root    run-parts --report  etc cron daily 47 6     7   root    run-parts --report  etc cron weekly 52 6 1       root    run-parts --report  etc cron monthly 01 01     1-5 root python  path to file py

User · Answer

You should put full paths in your crontab  That s the safest option  If you don t want to do that you can put a wrapper script around your programs  and set the PATH in there   e g   01 01       command   becomes   01 01        full path to command   Also anything called from cron should be be very careful about the programs it runs  and probably set its own choice for the PATH variable   EDIT   If you don t know where the command is that you want execute which  lt command gt  from your shell and it ll tell you the path    EDIT2   So once your program is running  the first thing it should do is set PATH and any other required variable  e g  LD LIBRARY PATH  to the values that are required for the script to run  Basically instead of thinking how to modify the cron environment to make it more suitable for your program script - make your script handle the environment it s given  by setting an appropriate one when it starts

User · Answer

Adding a PATH definition into the user crontab with correct values will help    I ve filled mine with this line on top  after comments  and before cron jobs   PATH  usr local sbin  usr local bin  usr sbin  usr bin  sbin  bin  And it s enough to get all my scripts working    Include any custom path there if you need to

User · Answer

Most likely  cron is running in a very sparse environment  Check the environment variables cron is using by appending a dummy job which dumps env to a file like this             env  gt  env dump txt   Compare that with the output of env in a normal shell session   You can prepend your own environment variables to the local crontab by defining them at the top of your crontab   Here s a quick fix to prepend  PATH to the current crontab     echo PATH  PATH  gt  tmp cron   echo  gt  gt  tmp cron   crontab -l  gt  gt  tmp cron   crontab tmp cron   The resulting crontab will look similar to chrissygormley s answer  with PATH defined before the crontab rules

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Problem  Your script works when you run it from the console but fails in cron   Cause  Your crontab doesn t have the right path variables  and possibly shell   Solution  Add your current shell and path the crontab  Script to do it for you     bin bash     Date  August 22  2013   Author  Steve Stonebraker   File  add current shell and path to crontab sh   Description  Add current user s shell and path to crontab   Source  http   brakertech com add-current-path-to-crontab   Github  hhttps   github com ssstonebraker braker-scripts blob master working-scripts add current shell and path to crontab sh    function that is called when the script exits  cleans up our tmp cron file  function finish     -e  tmp cron     amp  amp  rm tmp cron      whenver the script exits call the function  finish  trap finish EXIT                                             pretty printing functions function print status   echo -e   x1B 01 34m    x1B 0m  1     function print good   echo -e   x1B 01 32m    x1B 0m  1     function print error   echo -e   x1B 01 31m    x1B 0m  1     function print notification   echo -e   x1B 01 33m    x1B 0m  1     function printline      hr -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------   printf   s n     hr 0   COLUMNS -  tput cols                                              print message and exit program function die   print error   1   exit 1                                            user must have at least one job in their crontab function require gt1 user crontab job           crontab -l  amp  gt   dev null              -ne 0    amp  amp  die  Script requires you have at least one user crontab job                                              Add current shell and path to user s crontab function add shell path to crontab        print info about what s being added     print notification  Current SHELL    SHELL       print notification  Current PATH    PATH         Add current shell and path to crontab     print status  Adding current SHELL and PATH to crontab  nold crontab        printline  crontab -l  printline       keep old comments but start new crontab file     crontab -l   grep       gt  tmp cron       Add our current shell and path to the new crontab file     echo -e  SHELL   SHELL  nPATH   PATH  n   gt  gt  tmp cron        Add old crontab entries but ignore comments or any shell or path statements     crontab -l   grep -v        grep -v  SHELL    grep -v  PATH   gt  gt  tmp cron       load up the new crontab we just created     crontab tmp cron       Display new crontab     print good  New crontab       printline  crontab -l  printline    require gt1 user crontab job add shell path to crontab   Source  https   github com ssstonebraker braker-scripts blob master working-scripts add current shell and path to crontab sh  Sample Output

User · Answer

I know this has been answered already  but I thought that his would be useful to some  I had a similar issue that I recently solved  found here  and here are the highlights of the steps I took to answer this question    make sure that you have the variables you need in PYTHONPATH  found here and here and for more info here  inside the  profile or  bash profile for any shell you want to test your script in to make sure it works  edit your crontab to include the directories needed to run your script in a cron job  found here and here   a  be sure to include the root directory in the PATH variable     as explained here  basically if you are running an executable with your command it needs to be able to find root or the directory where the executable is stored  and probably these   sbin  bin  usr sbin  usr bin  in your crontab file  create a cronjob that will change directory to the directory where you have successfully ran the script before  i e  Users user Documents foo   a  This will look like the following           cd  Users user Documents foo  bar -l doSomething -v

User · Answer

Trevino  your answer helped me solve my problem  However  for a beginner  trying to give a step by step approach     Get your current installation of java via   echo  JAVA HOME   crontab -e           echo  PATH - this lets you understand whats the PATH value being used by crontab at present  Run crontab and grab  PATH value used by crontab  Now edit crontab again to set your desired java bin path  a  crontab -e  b  PATH  lt value of  JAVA HOME gt  bin  usr bin  bin  its a sample path   c  now your scheduled job script like   10         sh runMyJob sh  amp   d  remove echo  PATH from crontab as its not needed now

User · Answer

On my AIX cron picks up it s environmental variables from  etc environment ignoring what is set in the  profile    Edit  I also checked out a couple of Linux boxes of various ages and these appear to have this file as well  so this is likely not AIX specific    I checked this using joemaller s cron suggestion and checking the output before and after editing the PATH variable in  etc environment

User · Answer

Setting PATH right before the command line in my crontab worked for me             PATH  PATH  usr local bin  path to some thing

User · Answer

Make your variables work for you  this will allow access t  Define your PATH in  etc profile d   sh  System-wide environment variables   Files with the  sh extension in the  etc profile d directory get executed whenever a bash login shell is entered  e g  when logging in from the console or over ssh   as well as by the DisplayManager when the desktop session loads   You can for instance create the file  etc profile d myenvvars sh and set variables like this   export JAVA HOME  usr lib jvm jdk1 7 0 export PATH  PATH  JAVA HOME bin   Execute crontab with login option   CRONTAB run script or command with Environment Variables   0 9       cd  var www vhosts foo crons   bash -l -c  php -f   download php  0 9       cd  var www vhosts foo crons   bash -l -c download sh

User · Answer

Set the required PATH in your cron   crontab -e   Edit  Press i  PATH  usr local bin  usr local  or whatever  10         your command   Save and exit  wq

User · Answer

Should you use webmin then these are the steps how to set the PATH value   System   - gt  Scheduled Cron Jobs        - gt  Create a new environment variable             - gt  For user   lt Select the user name gt              - gt  Variable name  PATH             - gt  Value   usr bin  bin  lt your personal path gt              - gt  Add environment variable  Before all Cron jobs for user

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