SOLVED One user's cron jobs not running

[IanNQuality]

Hi there,

Yesterday I changed the cron notification email for one of my users. Since then their cron jobs are not running, they were running fine before that. All other users' jobs are still running fine on the same server.

I have spent some time looking into this and the only thing I have found (and I don't know if this is a red herring) is that the file /var/spool/cron/user has the line SHELL="/bin/false" before each of the jobs whereas the other users have the line SHELL="/usr/local/cpanel/bin/jailshell" before theirs.

Has anyone any ideas what could be wrong?

Thanks, Ian

 

[cPanelMichael]

Hello,

Yes, the "SHELL=" line needs to match the following if the account is assigned no shell or jailed shell access:

SHELL="/usr/local/cpanel/bin/jailshell"

This is discussed on the following thread:

some cPanel update added jailshell to my crontabs

Thank you.

 

[IanNQuality]

Hello,

Yes, the "SHELL=" line needs to match the following if the account is assigned no shell or jailed shell access:

SHELL="/usr/local/cpanel/bin/jailshell"

This is discussed on the following thread:

some cPanel update added jailshell to my crontabs

Thank you.

Thanks for that. It has partially answered my question. If I change that line then the cron job does start to fire. However, if I make any change to the cron jobs they are all reset to the "bin/false" entry. What could be causing that to happen?

 

[cPanelMichael]

However, if I make any change to the cron jobs they are all reset to the "bin/false" entry. What could be causing that to happen?

Can you verify which method you are using to update the cron job? If you are using the command line, ensure to use the following cPanel API 2 function:

cPanel API 2 Functions - Cron::add_line - Software Development Kit - cPanel Documentation

Thank you.

 

[IanNQuality]

Hi Michael,

I update it from within cPanel. It doesn't matter what I update, the notification email or the time of the cron, it puts those lines back to "bin/false"

 

[cPanelMichael]

I update it from within cPanel. It doesn't matter what I update, the notification email or the time of the cron, it puts those lines back to "bin/false"

I'm unable to reproduce this issue on a test system. Can you let us know which version of cPanel is installed? EX:

cat /usr/local/cpanel/version

Thank you.

 

[IanNQuality]

The version is 11.66.0.19

Thanks, Ian

 

[IanNQuality]

PS - I don't know if it is relevant, I have previously suspended this account

 

[cPanelMichael]

Hello Ian,

Can you check to verify if the account in-question is suspended? The behavior you reported is normal if the account is suspended, as cron jobs are not supposed to work.

Thank you.

 

[IanNQuality]

I can confirm the account is definitely not suspended. I have previously suspended it for short periods of time but the site is up and working.

Thanks, Ian

 

[cPanelMichael]

I can confirm the account is definitely not suspended. I have previously suspended it for short periods of time but the site is up and working.

Does the issue persist if you suspend the account, and then unsuspend it again? It's possible the account was not properly unsuspended.

Thank you.

 

[IanNQuality]

I've just tried that and the problem remains

 

[cPanelMichael]

Hello,

Could you open a support ticket using the link in my signature so we can take a closer look?

Thank you.

 

[IanNQuality]

Thanks,

I have opened a ticket. The ID is 8870889

 

[IanNQuality]

This has been fixed now. The support guy said that the file /etc/passwd had the offending entry and he changed it. Now I can update the cron jobs and they continue to fire.

Thanks, Ian

 

[cPanelMichael]

Hello Ian,

I'm happy to see the issue was solved. Thank you for updating us with the outcome.