Question

Using Whenever 0.7.3, Rails 3.2.2, Ruby 1.9.3, Passenger 3.0.11 on a CentOS 5.6 server (I’m not using rvm). The problem is that the cron jobs created by whenever are clearly executed, I can see them in the Cron log, however they don’t actually execute the Rails code. If I copy the cron code and paste it in the terminal it works as expected and does.

The code to be executed:

class SomeModel < ActiveRecord::Base

  #Delete all items that haven't been updated for 2 hours or more
  def self.cron_job
    SomeModel.destroy_all(updated_at < ?", 2.hours.ago])
  end
end

The schedule.rb:

set :output, "/var/log/cron"

every 1.day, :at => '4:45 am' do
  runner "SomeModel.cron_job"
end

Which generated the following cron (output crontab -l):

# Begin Whenever generated tasks for: site_name
45 4 * * * /bin/bash -l -c 'cd /home/user/domains/site_name && script/rails runner -e production '\''SomeModel.cron_job'\'' >> /var/log/cron 2>&1'
# End Whenever generated tasks for: site_name

If I check the following morning I find this in the cron log:

Apr 14 04:45:01 node1 crond[9155]: (root) CMD (/bin/bash -l -c 'cd /home/user/domains/site_name && script/rails runner -e production '\''SomeModel.cron_job'\'' >> /var/log/cron 2>&1')

However the items that should have been deleted are still in the database. If I copy the code cron is supposed to execute (/bin/bash -l -c ‘cd … 2>&1’ and execute it from the terminal then the items are removed as expected.

Also when I execute the code manually from the terminal there are no errors, in the cron log i see the following:

from script/rails:5:in 'require'
from script/rails:5
from script/rails:5:in 'require'
from script/rails:5

At moments where several cron jobs are executed this “error(?)” is printed only once in the log.

Is there a difference between executing something from a cronjob or entering the code in the terminal? Why can there be a difference and how do I ensure that it also works from the cronjob? Also is the log output supposed to be an error, it’s not telling me much unfortunately.

Answer 1

Ok solved it now. The problem was that I had both a Ruby in /usr/bin and a Ruby in /usr/local/bin.

I’ve deleted the ruby in /usr/bin and added the right path variable (PATH=”/usr/local/bin:/usr/bin:/bin”) to the crontab. Everything working as expected now.