Setting Cron Job in AWS EC2 instance

Question

I've created a cron job in AWS EC2 but it is not working.

I followed below steps to create cron tab:

Step 1: I logged in to AWS EC2 Instace

step 2: sudo su

step 2: crontab -e

Step 3: Insert mode

Step 4: I entered

    # M H DOM M DOW CMND

15 14 * * 3 /services/backup.sh >/tmp/error.log 2>&1

Step 5: :wq Cron tab is created but not running.

Please can you any one help me , why it is not working?

UPDATE :

after lots of researching i found that i can give a log to the particular cron file so added >/tmp/error.log 2>&1 in my file and created error.log there.

but i am not getting any cron log there. now i think my cron file is not running(obviously it is not running).

but how to see whether i am lacking

and when i checked cron service it is running with the name crond

service crond status
crond (pid  28283) is running...

(backup.sh script absolutely running fine)

Answer 1

could you try full path of backup.sh in cron like below; you can use pwd command to find full path of your script.

# M H DOM M DOW CMND
25 12 * * 3 /home/user/script/backup.sh

Maybe, your cron service not started, you can check status with "ps -ef | grep cron | grep -v grep"

if not see any thing run this;

sudo service cron start

if run; change cron as below;

15 13 * * 3 root /fullpath/backup.sh >/tmp/error.log 2>&1

then you check error.log

>/tmp/error.log 2>&1 is; redirect the output of your program to /tmp/error.log. Include both the Standard Error and Standard Out

Answer 2

I think your issue might with permission and ownership of your backup.sh file.

Check the ownership of file and then do changes accordingly in your /etc/crontab file :

25 12 * * 3 <owner of the file>  /home/user/script/backup.sh

For example if the owner of file backup.sh is root then it should look something like this:

25 12 * * 3 root  /home/user/script/backup.sh

Hope this help!