this post was submitted on 03 Aug 2026
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Programming

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cron PATH bit me again today (lemmy.world)
submitted 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) by indidev@lemmy.world to c/programming@programming.dev
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Deployed a backup script on a new server, tested it manually — worked fine. Set up crontab, came back next morning, no backup. Turns out /usr/local/bin wasn't in cron's PATH so pg_dump just silently didn't exist.

Switched to absolute path and it worked immediately. Fifteen minutes of debugging for a one-character fix. I keep making this mistake every time I set up a new box. At this point I should just have a checklist taped to my monitor.

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[–] marcos@lemmy.world 3 points 1 week ago (2 children)

Looks like you need to collect your crontab logs somewhere you can read.

[–] folekaule@lemmy.world 6 points 1 week ago

Or maybe even set up a valid MAILTO in the crontab so that failures are emailed to them.

My "pro" tips:

  • set up an email alias from root to an email you actually read
  • always use absolute paths
  • anything complex, put it in a shell script
[–] pelya@lemmy.world 3 points 1 week ago

You can append

2>&1 | logger -t my-cronjob

to any command, and it will write logs to system journal which you can view withjournalctl