This sounds like an environment problem. Use the script that you set up instead of calling the command directly - this is IMO better anyway. Then add the command 'set' to the beginning of the script, which will display all environment settings. Then run the script from the command line, and from cron, and compare the outputs. Chances are that taper, or something used by taper needs an environment variable that is not set. It's then just a case of finding out which one, and adding an 'export <name>=<value>' to the beginning of the script. Or, on the other hand, I could be completely wrong - it has been known. Gary On Friday 02 March 2001 7:57 am, Derek Harding wrote:

I wonder if anyone can give me a clue here:

I run taper to backup some directories. If I run it by hand it always works fine (running as root).

If I run unattended but actually started from the bash prompt (/sbin/taper -U @fileset) it runs OK. When run as a script which repeats the bash prompt command it runs OK.

BUT - when I have a line "27 0 * * mon-fri /sbin/taper -U @fileset" it aborts with the line that it cannot start a child process. It reads the fileset OK but simply won't complete.

Any ideas?

Anyone using the free version of Arkeia or what do you folk use for unattended backups?

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