Add cronjob with bash script - No crontab for root

Question

I have a similar issue. However, I am trying to countif in reference to another cell:

=Countif(Importrange("Sheet name", "'Sheet Tab"!DE:FH), "="&A3)

but get 0 for the result.

Solution

Sounds like (a) root's crontab is initially empty and (b) the -e option is set in the shell.

If the user's crontab file is empty then crontab -l exits with status 1.

If shell is running with -e option then it will exit immediately on failure (defined as exiting with non-zero status).

Look for errexit in the output of echo $SHELLOPTS to check for this setting. Turn it off in the current shell with set +e.

Comments

[ott--]

Check if you have root in /etc/cron.deny.

[Jimmy]

@ott-- I don't have that file at all, just cron.d cron.daily cron.hourly cron.monthly crontab cron.weekly

[mdpc]

Hate to ask a dumb question, but are you root when you execute these commands? Also instead of the raw commands please provide the transcript of their run.

[Jimmy]

@mdpc I am root yes. I will upload the full script when I get to my laptop but it's just that command with a #!/bin/bash header

[Jimmy]

@JennyD my reply in the answer below solved it which doesn't appear on you link

[HBruijn]

Typically when scripting and packaging (and running as root) dropping a new file with a cron entry in /etc/cron.d is easier to maintain.

[Dr.jacky]

echo $SHELLOPTS -> braceexpand:emacs:hashall:histexpand:history:interactive-com‌​ments:monitor

[Cédric Françoys]

Just in case : Ubuntu stores root contab under /var/spool/cron/crontabs/root