Re: What's the problem with this cron command

[Raj Kiran Grandhi <grajkiran@gmail.com>]

T o n g wrote:
> Hi, 
>
> Please take a look at the following cron task:
>
>  * * * * *	root	ps -eaf | grep -E 'cdrecord.* -[dts]ao |cdrdao *write|growisofs.*speed=' > /dev/null || logger get executed.
>
> It bewilders me that it is not doing what I want. Here is the syslog
> when it is run:
>
>  Mar 15 13:15:02 cxmr /USR/SBIN/CRON[22779]: (root) CMD (ps -eaf | grep -E 'cdrecord.* -[dts]ao |cdrdao *write|growisofs.*speed=' > /dev/null || logger get executed.)
>  Mar 15 13:15:02 cxmr /USR/SBIN/CRON[22780]: (root) CMD ...
>
> I.e., I want to execute a cron task if I'm not burning CD/DVD. But the
> actual command never get executed, even when I'm not burning CD/DVD. If I
> redo the command from the command line, it is fine: 
>
>  $ (ps -eaf | grep -E 'cdrecord.* -[dts]ao |cdrdao *write|growisofs.*speed=' > /dev/null || logger get executed.)

Did you try placing it in some file and executing that file from cron? 
It could be some problem with the parsing of quotes.

>  $ tail /var/log/syslog
>  Mar 15 13:16:27 cxmr tong: get executed.
>
> So, what is the problem? 
>
> PS. I'm sure the PATH is setup properly in my cron, so cron can find ps &
> grep.
>
> Thanks


--
Raj Kiran Grandhi
--
At the source of every error which is blamed on the computer, you will 
find at least two human errors, including the error of blaming it on the 
computer.