👀 Views: 272 💬 Answers: 1 📅 Created: 2025-06-12

linux cron centos-8 bash

I've encountered a strange issue with I'm sure I'm missing something obvious here, but I've been struggling with this for a few days now and could really use some help. I've been trying to set up a cron job on my CentOS 8 server to run a backup script every night at 2 AM. However, the script doesn't seem to execute, and I need to find any logs or behavior messages to indicate why. Here's how I've set it up: 1. I created a simple bash script located at `/usr/local/bin/backup.sh`, which looks like this: ```bash #!/bin/bash tar -czf /backup/my_backup_$(date +%F).tar.gz /home/myuser/ ``` I've given it execute permission using `chmod +x /usr/local/bin/backup.sh`. 2. Then, I added the following line to my crontab using `crontab -e`: ``` 0 2 * * * /usr/local/bin/backup.sh > /var/log/backup.log 2>&1 ``` I intended to redirect both standard output and errors to a log file. 3. I've confirmed that the cron service is running with `systemctl status crond`, and it shows as active. 4. I've checked the cron logs located at `/var/log/cron`, but there are no entries related to my job. I’ve also tried adding a simple echo command to the script to see if it gets executed, like this: ```bash echo "Backup job executed at $(date)" >> /var/log/backup.log ``` Even that doesn't produce any output in the log file. I'm stumped! Is there something special about the environment in which cron jobs run on CentOS 8 that I might be missing? Any tips on debugging this would be greatly appreciated! I'd really appreciate any guidance on this. My development environment is macOS. Thanks in advance! What am I doing wrong? Thanks for taking the time to read this!