Bash script runs differently in cron than manually launched

Help & Support Operating System
1

Hi,
I’m loosing my mind trying to understand why my simple bash script is running differently when launched manually and launched from crontab.

Script is performing 3 steps:

# STEP 1: remove folders older than 14 days first
find /storage/backup/DBDump -type d -ctime +14 -exec ls -d {} \; >/storage/backup/Temp/foldersToDelete.out
exec < /storage/backup/Temp/foldersToDelete.out
while read item ; do
        if [[ -d $item ]] ; then
                CURRDATE=`date "+%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S"`
                rm -rf $item && echo [$CURRDATE] deleted folder: $item >> /storage/backup/Temp/foldersDeleted.out
        fi
done

# STEP 2: create subfolder
CURRDIR=`date "+%Y-%m-%d"`
mkdir /storage/backup/DBDump/$CURRDIR

# STEP 3: dump DB and copy it to the created subfolder
/storage/.kodi/addons/service.mariadb/bin/mysqldump -h<my-NAS-IP> -P3307 -ukodi -p<password> MyMusic72 > /storage/backup/DBDump/$CURRDIR/MyMusic72.sql
/storage/.kodi/addons/service.mariadb/bin/mysqldump -h<my-NAS-IP> -P3307 -ukodi -p<password> MyVideos116 > /storage/backup/DBDump/$CURRDIR/MyVideos116.sql

When launching this script manually all 3 steps are completed.
When that script is added to the crontab then second and third step are completed but the first one is not.
The line launched in cron:

find /storage/backup/DBDump -type d -ctime +14 -exec ls -d {} \; >/storage/backup/Temp/foldersToDelete.out

does not generate the list of folders for deletion!
Output file:

/storage/backup/Temp/foldersToDelete.out

is created but is just empty.

When I launch this single line in SSH:

find /storage/backup/DBDump -type d -ctime +14 -exec ls -d {} \; >/storage/backup/Temp/foldersToDelete.out

then the output file contain the folder that will be deleted.

Why?
Please help!

2

Do you have entware packages installed too? I assume yes because busybox find doesn’t support -ctime parameter.
You should call find with full path to /opt/bin/find or whatever path it is.

3

Yes… entware is installed
and indeed it was required to add full path to find, ls and rm commands:

# remove folders older than 13 days first
/usr/bin/find /storage/backup/DBDump -type d -mtime +13 -exec /bin/ls -d {} \; >/storage/backup/Temp/foldersToDelete.out
exec < /storage/backup/Temp/foldersToDelete.out
while read item ; do
        if [[ -d $item ]] ; then
                CURRDATE=`date "+%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S"`
                /bin/rm -rf $item && echo [$CURRDATE] deleted folder: $item >> /storage/backup/Temp/foldersDeleted.out
        fi
done

and change -ctime to -mtime as the find in /storage/.opt/bin support -ctime but find in /usr/bin doesn’t.
Problem solved. Thanks vpeter for showing me the right direction. :slight_smile:

1 Like
4

I’m not sure if you really need full path to any of this 3 commands?

Also you could eliminate temporary file with something like this

/usr/bin/find /storage/backup/DBDump -type d -mtime +13 -exec /bin/ls -d {} \; | while read item ; do