Cron : Why are my cron scripts not running even though cron is running

Question

I have a 4 scripts to transfer database from one server to other for testing purpose. These scripts execute automatically in the night. When I call the scripts manually, I get no error, but without running them manually, I cannot see any data being transferred.

Server 1 :

ps -ef | grep cron
root      2350     1  0 Apr23 ?        00:00:26 /usr/sbin/cron
root     14293  9533  0 10:52 pts/4    00:00:00 grep cron

Server 2 :

ps -ef | grep cron
root     11269  8661  0 10:52 pts/1    00:00:00 grep cron
root     21726     1  0 Jan30 ?        00:00:31 /usr/sbin/cron

Server 1

crontab -e
# m h  dom mon dow   command
0 3 * * * /home/deploy/scripts/clearzip.sh
19 2 * * * /media/attachment/send_db.sh

send_db.sh

#! /bin/bash
pg_dump -C "DB_NAME" | bzip2 | sshpass -v ssh user@server2 "bunzip2 | psql "DB_NAME""
pg_dump -C "DB2" | bzip2 | sshpass -v ssh user@server2 "bunzip2 | psql "DB2""

Server2 :

# m h  dom mon dow   command
12 2 * * * ./home/postgres/stop_services.sh
17 2 * * * ./home/postgres/dropdb.sh
55 5 * * * ./home/postgres/start_services.sh

stop_services.sh :

#! /bin/bash
echo > >(tee -i /home/deploy/logfile.txt)
sh /home/deploy/tomcat7/bin/catalina.sh stop
killall java
killall screen

dropdb.sh

su -c "psql -c 'drop database "DB1";'" -s /bin/sh postgres
su -c "psql -c 'create database "DB1";'" -s /bin/sh postgres
su -c "psql -c 'drop database "DB2";'" -s /bin/sh postgres
su -c "psql -c 'create database "DB2";'" -s /bin/sh postgres

What might I be doing wrong? Any ideas?

Update

Errors in log file

could not change directory to "/root": Permission denied
could not change directory to "/root": Permission denied
could not change directory to "/root": Permission denied
could not change directory to "/root": Permission denied
/home/postgres/start_services.sh: line 5: service: command not found
/home/postgres/start_services.sh: line 6: service: command not found

Answer 1

I see two problems:

1. You are running things that need root privilege but are running them as a regular user.

2. You are using command names without their full PATH and therefore, the session opened by cron doesn't know where to find them.

To fix 1., don't use crontab -e and instead edit /etc/crontab or, even simpler, run sudo crontab -e to add it to root's crontab. Then, edit your dropdb.sh and remove the su (the script will now be launched by root, so no need for su).

To fix 2, the simplest approach would be to define the PATH in the crontab. It should look like this:

PATH=/bin:/sbin:/usr/sbin:/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/bin
# m h  dom mon dow   command
12 2 * * * ./home/postgres/stop_services.sh
17 2 * * * ./home/postgres/dropdb.sh
55 5 * * * ./home/postgres/start_services.sh

Alternatively, edit your scripts and make sure they all use absolute paths (so /usr/sbin/service instead of service).