Another Cron issue - reboot

hobbit666

Wonder why my simple reboot in Cron tab doesn't work.

00 16 * * * /sbin/shutdown -r now

Also tried Just

reboot

Adding the user to sudoers.d

Using
Ubuntu Mate 18.04 setup with a user called "display1"

IRJ

@hobbit666 said in Another Cron issue - reboot:

Wonder why my simple reboot in Cron tab doesn't work.

00 16 * * * /sbin/shutdown -r now

Also tried Just

reboot

Adding the user to sudoers.d

Using
Ubuntu Mate 18.04 setup with a user called "display1"

Run as root and initiate a script that runs reboot . I would avoid using now as it will just stop everything and could crash services.

So do something create a sh file like this with reboot command and put to script file
vi /etc/scripts/reboot.sh

DustinB3403

Cron runs scripts, while it can run commands, it's easier to just script what you want done.

hobbit666

@IRJ @DustinB3403 will give that a try tomorrow if I get a chance otherwise Sunday

scottalanmiller

@hobbit666 said in Another Cron issue - reboot:

@IRJ @DustinB3403 will give that a try tomorrow if I get a chance otherwise Sunday

Don't do it as a user, as IRJ says. This is because Cron does not use sudo. That would not make sense, if you dig into it.

Here is why....

The reason you put a cron job under a user is to act as that user. If cron tried to sudo, you'd lose the ability for users with sudo access to act as themselves, compromising security and limiting functionality.
Any user with sudo access to root can put the cron job that they want directly under root itself, so #1 doesn't limit their functionality in any way, it only gives them more functionality.
If it used sudo, tracking down where root level things were happening would become enormously difficult, instead of being centralized.