Cron fails to run bash script

Question

I have bash script

#!/bin/sh

DTFILE=/etc/daytime.addr
DTPORT=13
DAYTIME_ERROR=/tmp/dtm.err

function daytime_error(){
    if [[ -z $1 ]]
    then 
    exit 1
    fi
    if [[ -e $DAYTIME_ERROR ]]
    then
    echo "Error already reported"
    else
    logger "$1"
    touch $DAYTIME_ERROR
    fi
    exit 1
}

if [[ -s $DTFILE ]]
then
    ADDR=$(head -n1 $DTFILE)
    DAYTIME=$(telnet $ADDR $DTPORT | time_conv.awk)
    if [[ -z $DAYTIME ]]
    then
    daytime_error "Daytime client: no connection to $ADDR"
    else
    date -s "$DAYTIME"
    hwclock -w
    rm $DAYTIME_ERROR
    fi

else
    daytime_error "Daytime client: no daytime server address in file $DTFILE"
fi

and it works when called from command line, but fails when cron calls it. Specifically the line with telnet command gives zero bytes of output. Telnet has 755 mask, so every user should be able to use it. Any ideas ?

Answer 1

DAYTIME=$(telnet $ADDR $DTPORT | time_conv.awk)

First I would say use nc not telnet - telnet attempts all sorts of interactive line negotiation (TELOPTS) and things, whereas nc just creates a raw, clean, connection.

Secondly, where is time_conv.awk? Maybe you should specify a full path to that file?

Answer 2

In cron, you don't have a tty session anymore, it's non interactive. I think telnet doesn't like this. You will need some other program to get the connection. A simple program to do a tcp connect and dump it's contents should be a very small program, even for embedded work.

If you're running embedded, and if you have bash, maybe your version of bash supports the /dev/tcp/host/port pseudo device. This needs to be used in redirection, not an open file. I.E. cat < /dev/tcp/host/port will work, cat /dev/tcp/host/port will give an error.

DAYTIME=$(cat < /dev/tcp/$ADDR/$DTPORT | time_conv.awk)