Re: cron & cannot open display

[Elie De Brauwer <elie@de-brauwer.be>]

On Sunday 20 July 2003 12:17, David selby wrote:
> Hello
>
> I have been trying to get cron to execute programs at set times,
> As a test I am trying to execute dillo (loads fast!) I setup cron as
> user testbed to execute dillo every five mins,
> I get the following ......
>
>  From testbed@debian Sun Jul 20 11:10:01 2003
> Return-path: <testbed@debian>
> Envelope-to: testbed@debian
> Received: from testbed by debian with local (Exim 3.35 #1 (Debian))
>
>         for <testbed@debian>; Sun, 20 Jul 2003 11:10:01 +0100
> From: root@debian (Cron Daemon)
> To: testbed@debian
> Subject: Cron <testbed@debian> /usr/X11R6/bin/dillo
> X-Cron-Env: <SHELL=/bin/sh>
> X-Cron-Env: <HOME=/home/testbed>
> X-Cron-Env: <PATH=/usr/bin:/bin>
> X-Cron-Env: <LOGNAME=testbed>
> Message-Id: <E19eB8j-0000ZK-00@debian>
> Sender: CronDaemon <testbed@debian>
> Date: Sun, 20 Jul 2003 11:10:01 +0100
>
> Setting locale to C
>
> Gtk-WARNING **: cannot open display:
>
> OK so i know its something to do with $DISPLAY, I tried setting
> DISPLAY=:0.0 in a shell then execute dillo, no go ...
>
> I know cron works AOK on non x programs
>
> Can anyone advise ?
>
> Dave

Normally an x program should obey to the -display flag for example if you 
switch to console, login as root and type
xterm -display :0
A root xterm should appear on you X display. I've tried it with dillo here but 
dillo just ignores the flag (not implemented yet ?). So try it with a more 
basic X application like xterm, xclock, xbill ;) ... those should work when 
you specify the -display flag but first test it from console to verify it 
works.


hth
Elie De Brauwer