backintime root crontab doesn't run (missinng line-feed 0x0A on last line bug)

[dtschmitz]

Thank you for all the great work you do.

I have reinstalled Arch and cronie with backintime, enabled cronie and started the service from systemctl, status:

[root@ThinkPad backintime]# systemctl status cronie
● cronie.service - Periodic Command Scheduler
   Loaded: loaded (/usr/lib/systemd/system/cronie.service; enabled; vendor prese
   Active: active (running) since Sun 2017-06-18 10:15:42 EDT; 10min ago
 Main PID: 5091 (crond)
    Tasks: 1 (limit: 4915)
   CGroup: /system.slice/cronie.service
           └─5091 /usr/bin/crond -n

Jun 18 10:15:42 ThinkPad systemd[1]: Started Periodic Command Scheduler.
Jun 18 10:15:42 ThinkPad crond[5091]: (CRON) INFO (Syslog will be used instead o
Jun 18 10:15:42 ThinkPad crond[509[root@ThinkPad backintime]# crontab -l
  30 8 *   *   *   /usr/bin/nice -n19 /usr/bin/ionice -c2 -n7 /usr/bin/backintime backup-job > /root/.local/share/backintime/`echo $(date +"%Y%m%d%H%M").cron.log` 2>&1
1]: (CRON) INFO (RANDOM_DELAY will be scaled w
Jun 18 10:15:42 ThinkPad crond[5091]: (CRON) INFO (running with inotify support)
Jun 18 10:15:42 ThinkPad crond[5091]: (CRON) INFO (@reboot jobs will be run at c
Jun 18 10:18:01 ThinkPad crond[5091]: (root) RELOAD (/var/spool/cron/root)

The root crontab:

[root@ThinkPad backintime]# crontab -l
  30 8 *   *   *   /usr/bin/nice -n19 /usr/bin/ionice -c2 -n7 /usr/bin/backintime backup-job > /root/.local/share/backintime/`echo $(date +"%Y%m%d%H%M").cron.log` 2>&1

If I try to run with a specific time to test (above last test @ 8:30am) the cron doesn't run.
Yet, if I copy paste the command to the root command line, it does run.
I have no issue with backintime -- has always run like a Swiss Watch.

What am I missing? Any help would be appreciated.
Kindest Regards,
Dietrich

P.S. I am running Antergos (Arch Linux) rolling release

[Germar]

Did you try without the > /root/.local/share/backintime/'echo $(date +"%Y%m%d%H%M").cron.log' 2>&1 part? Just to eliminate potential errors!?

cronie should log into syslog about starting and finishing jobs. Please search your syslog for infos about that job

[dtschmitz]

Here's the output:

[root@ThinkPad backintime]# pwd
/root/.local/share/backintime
[root@ThinkPad backintime]# 

[root@ThinkPad backintime]# ls -l
total 1208
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root     588 Jun 18 09:53 18-06-2017.cron.log
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root     588 Jun 18 10:18 201706181017.cron.log
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root     588 Jun 18 10:20 201706181019.cron.log
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root    4096 Jun 17 06:17 anacron
-rw------- 1 root root      49 Jun 18 10:20 cron_env
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root    4096 Jun 16 21:52 mnt
drwx------ 2 root root    4096 Jun 18 10:20 password_cache
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root   15918 Jun 17 17:38 restore_.log
-rw-rw-rw- 1 root root 1190101 Jun 18 10:20 takesnapshot_.log
[root@ThinkPad backintime]# cat 201706181019.cron.log

Back In Time
Version: 1.1.20

Back In Time comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY.
This is free software, and you are welcome to redistribute it
under certain conditions; type `backintime --license' for details.

INFO: Lock
INFO: Take a new snapshot. Profile: 1 Main profile
INFO: Compare with old snapshot: 20170618-101728-861
INFO: Create hard-links
INFO: Call rsync to take the snapshot
INFO: Save config file
INFO: Save permissions
INFO: Create info file
INFO: Remove backups older than: 20170417-000000
INFO: Keep min free disk space: 1024 MiB
INFO: Keep min 2% free inodes
INFO: Unlock
[root@ThinkPad backintime]# 

It's working fine from the command line.
Thank you Germar. :)

[Germar]

Okay, it works fine on the shell. But cron can be a bit picky. So please remove that trailing part from your cron job and try again. Also please post the output of:

grep -i "cron" /var/log/syslog

[dtschmitz]

I am using Arch which is systemd based. Is there a syslog in that case?
Otherwise I open journalctl and search and find:
un 18 06:32:01 ThinkPad crond[19912]: (root) CAN'T OPEN (/etc/crontab): No such file or directory

Since seeing that in systemctl status cronie I ran:
#touch /etc/crontab
There are no other errors.

[Germar]

So this seems to be a problem with cronie. Sorry, but I've no clue about systemd and cronie. Please ask in an Arch forum for help on getting cronie set up.

[dtschmitz]

ok will do. Thanks

[dtschmitz]

Here's the solution:
https://forum.antergos.com/topic/7231/root-crontab-cronie-backup-job-doesn-t-start/2#
I would suggest that you update your code the creates the crontab entry and append a line-feed (0x0A) to the end of the last line.
Story on Stackexchange

I had the same problem - a working crontab suddenly stopped after I added a new entry at the end. It turned out that I had forgotten to put a newline after that last line.

I found out by issuing the command

cat /var/log/syslog | grep crontab
and the output showed the problem:

Jul 2 08:16:01 shiva cron[1254]: (system) RELOAD (/etc/crontab)
Jul 2 08:16:01 shiva cron[1254]: (system) ERROR (Missing newline before EOF, this crontab file will be ignored)

[Germar]

Oh, good catch. Thanks for debugging!