CRON task not running!

deanfourie

Setup a CRON task to bring down and up interface WAN at specific time. However, its not working.

If I execute these commands within the pfSense shell directly, they work.

/sbin/ifconfig hn1 down
/sbin/ifconfig hn1 up

However, executing the same commands using CRON does not work.

53 10 * * * root /sbin/ifconfig hn1 down

Any ideas?

Thanks

Gertjan

Put these in a script file, like /root/myscript.sh
Add nice line like logger "before ..." and end with logger "after ...". Use the the full path of the logger command.
Don't forget the hash bang with the path to a shell.
Don't forget to make the script executbale.
Enter the script as a cron, use the cron pfsense package.

@deanfourie said in CRON task not running!:

/sbin/ifconfig hn1 down
/sbin/ifconfig hn1 up

When the cron script runs, you see the logger lines in the system log.

deanfourie

@gertjan thanks for the replt.

sorry I dont understand.

So something like

#bash
logger "enable interface"
/sbin/ifconfig hn1 up

and

#bash
logger "disable interface"
/sbin/ifconfig hn1 down.

Was I even close to on the money HAHA.

Thanks

Gertjan

@deanfourie said in CRON task not running!:

#bash

No really.
Use any other shell script file to see what I mrean.
Is bash installed ? As far as I know, no.

#!/bin/sh

If bash is installed :

#!/usr/local/bin/bash

because bash would be here : /usr/local/bin/

I found logger, it's in in /usr/bin/

deanfourie

@gertjan Sorry man im a little basic when it comes to scripting.

#!/bin/sh
/sbin/ifconfig hn1 down

would take the interface down correct?

Gertjan

@deanfourie said in CRON task not running!:

would take the interface down correct?

Yes.
A command typed on the command line, can also be used in a script file **.

When I created a text file called /root/test like :

#!/bin/sh
/usr/bin/logger "Disable interface"
/sbin/ifconfig em0 down
/usr/bin/logger "Enable interface"
/sbin/ifconfig em0 up
/usr/bin/logger "Done"

And I make it executable

chmod +x  /root/test

Now I can

/root/test

In the system log, I saw :

and it broke my connection for a moment, as my WAN interface is em0 for me, it went down and up.

** edit : if the command is interactive, things get a bit more complicated.

deanfourie

@gertjan great thank you!

Then I need to execute the script from the Cron task? How can I call the script?

Thanks again appreciate your help

SteveITS

@deanfourie There is a cron package to manage cron jobs. As I recall if you manually add cron jobs, they are lost on reboot.

deanfourie

@steveits Yup, CRON package is installed.

Only thing I need to get right is to execute the script from the Cron job.

Gertjan

@deanfourie

On the main cron page, you have 2 buttons :

How cron works, what you have to enter as the "time" needs some reading.
Any "FreeBSD cron man page" will do here.

deanfourie

@gertjan Turn out this morning at 11 AM when I was away the interface went down.

Turns out I was using 12hour time format not 24hour.

FFS

So, after all that the CRONs do work.

Gertjan

@deanfourie said in CRON task not running!:

Turns out I was using 12hour time format not 24hour.

Yes, a day has 24 hours.

deanfourie

@gertjan Thanks for that

Thanks for your help!