making a bash script run through crontab

[mstrauss2023]

I have a bash script which mounts a NAS drive, copies a folder from the NAS to a local folder then unmounts the drive. When I double-click the file it opens in a terminal and works perfectly.
I tried running it in crontab but nothing happens. I have many cronjobs which work just fine.

copyshare.sh (yes, it's executable)
#!/bin/bash
sudo mount -t cifs //192.168.1.1/TV\ Shows\ \(4.54TB\) /mnt/nas -o username=*****,password=*****,uid=mike,gid=mike,vers=1.0
cp -fr /mnt/nas/Share_MC /home/mike/backup/nas/
sudo umount /mnt/nas

The location of the script: /home/mike/backup/copyshare.sh
I have tried the following in crontab but nothing happens:
0 18 * * * /home/mike/backup/copyshare.sh
0 19 * * * /usr/bin/gnome-terminal -- /home/mike/backup/copyshare.sh

I also tried putting the script commands into crontab but nothing happens:
0 18 * * * sudo mount -t cifs //192.168.1.1/TV\ Shows\ \(4.54TB\) /mnt/nas -o username=*****,password=*****,uid=mike,gid=mike,vers=1.0
1 18 * * * cp -fr /mnt/nas/Share_MC /home/mike/backup/nas/
15 18 * * * sudo umount /mnt/nas

Any help would be appreciated.

Mike


Runnning:
Linux Mint 21.2 Cinnamon
cinnamon ver 5.8.4
Linux Kernel 5.15.0-78-generic
Processor Intel© Core™ i7-4800MQ CPU @ 2.70GHz × 4
Memory 31.2 GiB
Graphincs Card Intel Corporation 4th Gen Core Processor Integrated Graphics Controller
NVIDIA Corporation GK107GLM [Quadro K1100M]

[Shiva]

I tried running it in crontab but nothing happens. I have many cronjobs which work just fine.

copyshare.sh (yes, it's executable)
#!/bin/bash
sudo mount -t cifs //192.168.1.1/TV\ Shows\ \(4.54TB\) /mnt/nas -o username=*****,password=*****,uid=mike,gid=mike,vers=1.0
cp -fr /mnt/nas/Share_MC /home/mike/backup/nas/
sudo umount /mnt/nas

Hi,
This post would have been better posted in the Script & bash section.
About your problem now :
At startup, when cronjobs are executed, the system does not know about any user. This comes later, when the environment is set.
So your dest directory name /home/mike/backup/nas/ cannot be solved at startup. The only thing which is known at that moment is a folder named mike in the /System Files/home directory.
Use full path starting from root : "/System Files//home/mike/backup/nas/" with quotes because if I remember correctly, there is a blank between System & Files (cannot test because my locale is not English).
If the script works, the cronjob will certainly do.

[axisofevil]

Should sudo umount /mnt/nas be part of your script, it won't work.

[mstrauss2023]

Thanks for the replies guys.

Shiva, you may be right about using cp -fr /mnt/nas/Share_MC "/System Files//home/mike/backup/nas/" in the bash script however the first command in the bash script sudo mount -t cifs //192.168.1.1/TV\ Shows\ \(4.54TB\) /mnt/nas -o username=admin,password=137ab4,uid=mike,gid=mike,vers=1.0 isn't even running.
Therefore I have to assume that the script isn't being called for some reason; I kept an eye on /mnt/nas to see if it ever mounted and it didn't.


as far as

Should sudo umount /mnt/nas be part of your script, it won't work.

In the script this does work because in visudo I entered
mike ALL=(ALL:ALL) NOPASSWD: /bin/umount /mnt/nas

So problem remains: bash script not running as a cronjob.
I've been trying to think of a bash script I can write that can test if it can run as a cronjob. The only thing I could think of was a script using the read command to get user input but that never came up in a terminal even when used with /usr/bin/gnome-terminal --

[MiZoG]

In my 20+ years on Linux and with all I know about root filesystem it's the first time I hear about this path: "/System Files//home/...". Capital letters + space in the name is strange to say the least. Lost in translation maybe?

[mstrauss2023]

I just checked the cronjob logs in /var/log/syslog.
I did a search for copyshare and found it how ever there were no errors.
Very puzzling

[mstrauss2023]

Something new which I don't understand:

before I ran crontab -e under my user accoutn mike and the bash script didn't run.

As a test I ran sudo crontab -e and entered the job for the bash script so it would run under sudo to see what would happen.
Much to my surprise it ran.

I don't understand why a bash script runs under sudo and not mike. Mike is a member of sudoers group.

With this new information, does anyone have any thoughts on how I can make it run under the mike account?

[axisofevil]

When you ran sudo crontab -e, you entered your password and created a crontab entry for root (because of the sudo).
So all commands worked.

Also - unless things have changed - doesn't cron run using the sh shell, not the bash shell?
Not sure how this would interact with a bash script using sudo.

[mstrauss2023]

About the sh shell, I tried running under mike withh that shell but that didnt work either

[Shiva]

In my 20+ years on Linux and with all I know about root filesystem it's the first time I hear about this path: "/System Files//home/...". Capital letters + space in the name is strange to say the least. Lost in translation maybe?

As I said above :
Use full path starting from root : "/System Files//home/mike/backup/nas/" with quotes because if I remember correctly, there is a blank between System & Files (cannot test because my locale is not English).

Seems my remembering was not as accurate as I guessed. And yes, it was just a bold translation of my locale.