Question

I have a server in my room with a duo-core processor and basic internet (nothing fancy)

I’m running ubuntu 11.04 and I’m running a php script from the crontab.

0 3 * * * php back_up_to_s3.php

This script takes about 20-30 minutes to run. It works fine when run from the crontab, however if I run it at the same time as other scripts that take about 5-10 minutes to run.

0 3 * * * php back_up_to_s3.php
0 3 * * * php do_this.php
0 3 * * * php do_that.php

It doesn’t finish. My guess is that it’s timing out. Here is the source of back_up_to_s3.php

include('Zend/Service/Amazon/S3.php');
include("connect_to_database.php");

$my_aws_key = '******';
$my_aws_secret_key = '******';
Zend_Service_Amazon_S3::setKeys($my_aws_key, $my_aws_secret_key);
$s3 = new Zend_Service_Amazon_S3();


$fileName = exec("date +'%m_%d_%y'") . '.tar';

$filePath ="/home/me/temp_db_backups/$fileName";

exec("mysqldump -h localhost -u root -ppassword DATABASE_NAME > $filePath");

$s3->putObject('myBucket/' . $fileName, file_get_contents($filePath),
    array(Zend_Service_Amazon_S3::S3_ACL_HEADER =>
            Zend_Service_Amazon_S3::S3_ACL_PRIVATE,            
            Zend_Service_Amazon_S3::S3_CONTENT_TYPE_HEADER =>
            'audio/mpeg'
));                   

unlink($filePath);

I know the script doesn’t finish because the tarred backup does not appear in my s3 bucket. However the tar file gets created and is still in my /home/me/temp_db_backups so I know the script terminates while $s3-putObject executes.

Answer 1

Hello LedZeppelin (doubt if I will every get to say that 🙂
Instead of guessing what could be happening, redirect the output to a log file and you will know for sure

0 3 * * * php back_up_to_s3.php >/tmp/backup_cronoutput 2>&1
0 3 * * * php do_this.php >/tmp/do_this_cronoutput 2>&1
0 3 * * * php do_that.php >/tmp/do_that_cronoutput 2>&1