Shell script not running via crontab, but runs fine manually

Question

I have a script that checks if the PPTP VPN is running, and if not it reconnects the PPTP VPN. When I run the script manually it executes fine, but when I make a cron job, it's not running.

* * * * * /bin/bash /var/scripts/vpn-check.sh

Here is the script:

#!/bin/sh
/bin/ping -c3 192.168.17.27 > /tmp/pingreport
result=`grep "0 received" /tmp/pingreport`
truncresult="`echo "$result" | sed 's/^\(.................................\).*$$'`"
if [[ $truncresult == "3 packets transmitted, 0 received" ]]; then
/usr/sbin/pppd call home
fi

Answer 1

finally i found a solution ... instead of entering the cronjob with

crontab -e

i needed to edit the crontab file directly

nano /etc/crontab

adding e.g. something like

*/5 *     * * *   root  /bin/bash /var/scripts/vpn-check.sh

and its fine now!

Thank you all for your help ... hope my solution will help other people as well.

Answer 2

In my case, the issue was that the script wasn't marked as executable. To make sure it is, run the following command:

chmod +x your_script.sh

Answer 3

After a long time getting errors, I just did this:

SHELL=/bin/bash 
PATH=/bin:/sbin:/usr/bin:/usr/sbin
* * * * * /bin/bash /home/joaovitordeon/Documentos/test.sh

Where test.sh contains:

#!/bin/bash 

/usr/bin/python3  /home/joaovitordeon/Documentos/test.py;