Rsnapshot - Daily job runs manually fine, but fail with cron

[bertalanimre]

Hello Boys!

My rsnapshot behaves very strange for me and I don't know the why and the solution neither.

I have made an rsnapshot config file for a remote servers backup. In it, there is a bash_script command which tells rsnapshot, to run this srcipt while backing up. Now comes the tricky part:
If I run the command:

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/usr/bin/rsnapshot -c /backup/configs/charm.conf daily

it runs smooth and fine.
I've added it to my crontab like:

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 08   11       *       *       *       /usr/bin/rsnapshot -c /backup/configs/charm.conf daily

and in the logs I can see that it fails at running the script declared in the config file.

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....
[03/Jul/2015:11:08:30] /usr/bin/rsnapshot -c /backup/configs/charm.conf daily: ERROR: backup_script /backup/scripts/charm.sh returned 255
...
[03/Jul/2015:11:08:30] /usr/bin/rsnapshot -c /backup/configs/charm.conf daily: ERROR: /usr/bin/rsync returned 255 while processing XY@SERVER.hu:/home/XY/sqldump/
...

What the hell? This annoys me because I want to order the remote servers to do a mysqldump from the backup server and not individually. For request, I OFC have all the logs and configs ready to upload.

[lightman47]

What happens if, after the final asterisk in your crontab, you insert " root"? (The user who is to run the job)

[bertalanimre]

What happens if, after the final asterisk in your crontab, you insert " root"? (The user who is to run the job)

So you suggest my crontab should look like this?

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#MAILTO="" ##Supresses output
###MAILTO=me
###################################################################
#minute (0-59),                                                   #
#|    hour (0-23),                                                #
#|    |        day of the month (1-31),                           #
#|    |        |       month of the year (1-12),                  #
#|    |        |       |       day of the week (0-6 with 0=Sunday)#
#|    |        |       |       |       commands                   #
###################################################################
 08   11       *       *       *       /usr/bin/rsnapshot -c /backup/configs/charm.conf daily
 33   07       *       *       6       /usr/bin/rsnapshot -c /backup/configs/charm.conf weekly
 24   04       1       *       *       /usr/bin/rsnapshot -c /backup/configs/charm.conf monthly
" USERNAME"

[MartinR]

Watch out - there are two crontabs. The format for a user's crontab is as you have it:

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<min> <hour> <dom> <month> <dow> <command>

The system crontab in /etc/crontab (and /etc/crontab.d/...) is

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<min> <hour> <dom> <month> <dow> <user> <command>

lightman's suggestion was good if you are using the system cron tabs (which is more common these days), but would be wrong for a user's crontab.

[bertalanimre]

MADE IT!!!! This should be in the manual of rsnapshot or somewhere else. Here is thee answer:
I used the command:

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/usr/bin/rsnapshot -c /backup/configs/charm.conf daily

in my crontab

However, I've read that cron doesn't know anything about the environment, so I must use absolute path always. That's why I used /usr/bin/rsnapshot in the 1st place. Then it popped to my mind just now: I have to notify rsnapshot that everything after the /usr/bin/rsnapshot is an option for it, and not a separate action.

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/usr/bin/rsnapshot -c /backup/configs/charm.conf -v daily

The V was needed..... Tho I have no idea why.