crontab - /bin/sh: wget: command not found

Question

I want to set up a crontab on my Macbook Pro running Lion. I run the usual crontab -e and provide a quick job to see if everything is working ok ---

*/10 * * * * wget -O - -q -t 1 http://site.local/cron.php

10 minutes later I see I've got some "mail" from the system stating ---

/bin/sh: wget: command not found

I do have wget installed as I can run the program from the command line

How do I fix this error? Does my crontab or .bash_profile require a shebang?

Answer 1

It's probably something to do with your environment being different when it's run as a cron job (ie the PATH environment variable is different than what you're using from a bash terminal).

In your bash terminal, use which to figure out which wget is being used:

laptop [ ~ ]: which wget
/opt/local/bin/wget

Then use the full path in the cron job:

*/10 * * * * /opt/local/bin/wget -O - -q -t 1 http://site.local/cron.php

For cron jobs, I usually have it run a bash script instead of specifying the command directly in the crontab. It's a bit easier to debug and keeps the crontab a bit cleaner.

Answer 2

To find out where a certain command is located try:

which wget

or

which <certain-command>

The output should provide the path of the executable. For example:

linux-dgr7:~ # sudo which wget
/usr/bin/wget 

then change the entry like so:

*/10 * * * * /usr/bin/wget -O - -q -t 1 http://site.local/cron.php

If the wget does not come up after doing which... you should add the location to the PATH variable.

PATH=$PATH:/where/ever/path/is

or

PATH=$PATH:/opt/wget