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I'm running Ubuntu 14 and I added the following line to my crontab:

*/1 * * * * : testing; /usr/sbin/service my-service status > ~/status 2>&1

After the next minute rolls around, I see this in ~/status:

my-service: unrecognized service

If I run this from the terminal, it does recognize the service:

~$ /usr/sbin/service my-service status
my-service stop/waiting

I'm wondering what could be responsible for my service being unrecognized in the cron job's environment but not in my environment when I ssh to the server?

nonagon
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1 Answers1

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I found that this works:

*/1 * * * * : testing; /sbin/initctl status my-service > ~/status 2>&1

/usr/sbin/service works with SystemV jobs (e.g. those in /etc/init.d), and under Ubuntu it also sees Upstart jobs (e.g. those in /etc/init). /sbin/initctl works directly with Upstart jobs. So my guess is that the mechanism that allows /usr/sbin/service to see Upstart jobs isn't working for some reason in the environment my cron job runs in, but I'm not sure how to explore that further.

nonagon
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    I'm not accepting my own answer here since it's really just a workaround with a guess as to what was happening. – nonagon Nov 11 '14 at 18:59
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    Additional details: in the cron environment, /sbin is not include in PATH. When I execute `PATH=/usr/bin:/bin:/sbin service`, my services are recognized. – plediii Jul 26 '15 at 21:05