Run Node Script in Cron Job

1 minute read

What happen?

I created a npm packge s3syncer-node-client to upload the local files to s3 bucket.

When you install this package, there will be a command s3syncer in /usr/local/bin.

I want to run this command every 5 minute to synchronize the local files.

I add following line into the crontab

*/5 * * * * s3syncer -f ~/Dropbox/ -p files/ -i https://someurl -k somekey >> ~/.s3syncer.log 2>&1

But there is an error in ~/.s3syncer.log

/bin/sh: s3syncer: command not found

I invoke the command using absolute path, the line in crontab like this

*/5 * * * * /usr/local/bin/s3syncer -f ~/Dropbox/ -p files/ -i https://someurl -k somekey >> ~/.s3syncer.log 2>&1

But there is another error

env: node: No such file or directory

Seems cron job can’t find node, so I use node invoke the script directly

*/5 * * * * /usr/local/bin/node /usr/local/bin/s3syncer -f ~/Dropbox/ -p files/ -i https://someurl -k somekey >> ~/.s3syncer.log 2>&1

It works.

I can’t find the system log of cron job. After google, I got one way to solve this

Add the following text into /etc/syslog.conf
```
cron.*      /var/log/cron.log
```

Execute the following command to reload the configuration

sudo launchctl unload /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.syslogd.plist
sudo launchctl load /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.syslogd.plist

Then we can find log in /var/log/cron.log