Ubuntu 16, Run Python script with Crontab

Question

For testing purposes, I have a very simple python script which creates a text file, named with current datetime so I can tell when it has been ran:

#!/usr/bin/python

from time import gmtime, strftime

try:

    filename = strftime("%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S", gmtime())
    f = open(filename+'.txt', 'w')
    f.write('HelloWorld')
    f.close()
except StopIteration:
    print "An error has occurred.."

I have placed the file here and it has full permissions:

usr/share/pyshared/scripts/test_script.py

When i run the script manually with the following, the script runs and creates my test text file:

python ~/../../usr/share/pyshared/scripts/test_script.py

In my crontab file I have the following which does not run (should run every minute for testing purposes).

* * * * * python ~/../../usr/share/pyshared/scripts/test_script.py

First time experimenting with crontab and fairly new to linux as well so forgive me if I've missed something fairly obvious here, Thanks in advance.

Václav Struhár · Accepted Answer · 2017-06-09 13:30:32Z

5

Use absolute paths in crontab:

* * * * * /usr/bin/python /usr/share/pyshared/scripts/test_script.py

Also, specify absolute path in your script:

filename = "/home/MYUSER/"+strftime("%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S", gmtime())
f = open(filename+'.txt', 'w')

edited Jun 9, 2017 at 13:30

answered Jun 9, 2017 at 13:26

Václav Struhár

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1 Comment

Corey Goldberg Over a year ago

some explanation: cron uses a different shell and executes with an empty environment. without absolute paths, it won't even find the Python interpreter since there is no PATH variable defined.

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