Question

Have made backup script that does well: makes backup zip-file and then uploads it via ftp to another server. It’s located here: /home/www/web5/backup/backup

Then I decided to put this script into crontab to be done automatically.
I’m doing (as root)

crontab -e

On the blank row I put:

*/1 * * * * /home/www/web5/backup/backup

Escape key, :wq!, Enter

I set it to be done each minute to test it.
Then went to the FTP folder, where script uploads the files. I’m waiting, but nothing happens: catalog is empty after each refresh in my Total Commander.

But when I execute /home/www/web5/backup/backup manually (as root as well), it works just fine and I see the new file at FTP.

What’s wrong? This server is kind of heritage, so I might know not everything about it. Where to check first? OS is

Linux s090 2.6.18.8-0.13-default

(kind of very old CentOS).
Thanks for any help!

UPD: /home/www/web5/backup/backup has chmod 777
UPD2: /var/log/cron doesn’t exist. But /var/log/ directory exists and contains logs of apache, mail, etc.

Answer 1

*/1 may be the problem. Just use *.

* * * * * /home/www/web5/backup/backup

Also, make sure /home/www/web5/backup/backup is executable with chmod 775 /home/www/web5/backup/backup

Check /var/log/cron as well. That may show errors leading to a fix.

---

From Crontab – Quick Reference

• Crontab Environment

cron invokes the command from the user’s HOME
directory with the shell, (/usr/bin/sh). cron supplies a default
environment for every shell, defining:

HOME=user’s-home-directory
LOGNAME=user’s-login-id
PATH=/usr/bin:/usr/sbin:.
SHELL=/usr/bin/sh

Users who desire to have their .profile executed must explicitly do so
in the crontab entry or in a script called by the entry.