OsX Crontab having no effect

Question

I am dynamically appending cron tasks to the user crontab

The tasks seem to be getting adde, crontab -e looks like:

*/10 * * * * /bin/sh /Users/john/Kiosk/app/content/update.sh
@reboot /usr/bin/open /Users/john/Kiosk/startup.command

Trouble is that it appears to be having no effect.

The content of startup.command:

cd /Users/john/Kiosk/app && /usr/bin/python -m SimpleHTTPServer &
sleep 5 && open http://localhost:8000

What am I getting wrong?

Answer 1

Do not use relative paths, buth full ones. Also with binaries.

Then, your line should be

*/10 * * * * /usr/bin/sh /home/<username>/Kiosk/app/content/update.sh
@reboot open /home/<username>/Kiosk/startup.command

Answer 2

Taking the open command away did the trick

@reboot yourscript.command

Answer 3

The default path is /usr/bin:/bin, and tildes do work in the user crontab, so this should work:

*/10 * * * * bash ~/Kiosk/app/content/update.sh

Have you tried replacing update.sh with something like a say command for testing it?

@reboot works for me when restarting but not when logging out and back in. @reboot open /test.txt didn't work but * * * * * open /test.txt did.

You could also save a plist like this as ~/Library/LaunchAgents/simplehttpserver.plist:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC -//Apple Computer//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd>
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
    <key>KeepAlive</key>
    <true/>
    <key>Label</key>
    <string>simplehttpserver</string>
    <key>ProgramArguments</key>
    <array>
        <string>python</string>
        <string>-m</string>
        <string>SimpleHTTPServer</string>
        <string>8000</string>
    </array>
    <key>RunAtLoad</key>
    <true/>
    <key>WorkingDirectory</key>
    <string>/Users/john/Kiosk/app</string>
</dict>
</plist>

It can be loaded with launchctl load ~/Library/LaunchAgents/simplehttpserver.plist or by logging out and back in.