[gentoo-user] Postgres gem not found by cron job

[gentoo-user] Postgres gem not found by cron job

[Michael Orlitzky]

I feel like I should be able to solve this one, but it started after my 
last world update so maybe someone else has had a similar problem.

We have a ruby script called 'mailshears' on our mail server that cleans 
up orphaned users and domains every night. The main script,

   /root/src/mailshears/bin/mailshears

includes a class,

   require 'src/postfixadmin_db'

which in turn requires the postgres library from ruby-postgres:

   require 'postgres'

I don't think there's anything fancy going on here. All of the required 
packages are installed, and the script runs fine when I execute it 
manually. For example, both of the following work:

   cd /root/src/mailshears/bin/
   ./mailshears

   cd /
   export PATH=/sbin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin
   export HOME=/
   /root/src/mailshears/bin/mailshears

(That last one mimics my crontab.) The problem is, whenever the nightly 
cron job runs, the 'postgres' library can't be found. I get mailed this 
every night:

   /root/src/mailshears/bin/../src/postfixadmin_db.rb:1:in `require': no
   such file to load -- postgres (LoadError)
	from /root/src/mailshears/bin/../src/postfixadmin_db.rb:1
	from /etc/cron.daily/01mailshears:35:in `require'
	from /etc/cron.daily/01mailshears:35

The path /etc/cron.daily/01mailshears is simply a symlink to 
/root/src/mailshears/bin/mailshears, and of course, if I execute that 
symlink manually, it runs fine.

What's different between my root environment and the one in which cron 
runs (with respect to ruby and its gems)? Where should I start looking?

Re: [gentoo-user] Postgres gem not found by cron job

[Bill Longman]

<snip>
> What's different between my root environment and the one in which cron
> runs (with respect to ruby and its gems)? Where should I start looking?

No direct answer, sorry, Michael.

You might want to use:

 /bin/bash -l -x -c /root/src/mailshears/bin/mailshears

to at least help debug it.

Re: [gentoo-user] Postgres gem not found by cron job

[Michael Orlitzky]

On 08/11/2010 03:16 PM, Bill Longman wrote:
> <snip>
>> What's different between my root environment and the one in which cron
>> runs (with respect to ruby and its gems)? Where should I start looking?
>
> No direct answer, sorry, Michael.
>
> You might want to use:
>
>   /bin/bash -l -x -c /root/src/mailshears/bin/mailshears
>
> to at least help debug it.
>

Thanks for the tip. The cron environment was missing 
"RUBYOPT=-rauto_gem" -- adding it fixed the problem.

Dark magic, whatever it does.

[gentoo-user] Re: Postgres gem not found by cron job

[Hans de Graaff]

On Wed, 11 Aug 2010 15:32:53 -0400, Michael Orlitzky wrote:

> Thanks for the tip. The cron environment was missing
> "RUBYOPT=-rauto_gem" -- adding it fixed the problem.
> 
> Dark magic, whatever it does.

It ensures that installed gems are found automatically without
specifying this explicitly in your script. The other solution
is to "require 'rubygems'" first in your script.

Kind regards,

Hans