[vox-tech] crontab and scp puzzle

[Michael Wenk]

It is looking for an open tty and is failing because cron does not do that.

I don't know much about scp and ttys, but I would try either -N or -q
and see if that works.  Otherwise see if there's an SSH/SCP option to
get it to not use a tty.

Mike

On Wed, Mar 16, 2011 at 9:43 AM, Bruce Wolk <bawolk at ucdavis.edu> wrote:
> I need to copy a file from my server to a workstation on a regular
> basis.  I have set up passwordless ssh access to the server from my
> workstation.  When I execute the following on the workstation, the
> command succeeds and the file is copied:
>
> scp -P 33303 bruce at myserver.com:backup/db.sql.gz
> /home/bruce/backup/db.sql.gz
>
> But when I put the same command into a cron file on the workstation, the
> command fails.  The relevant output from the scp command is:
>
> debug1: Found key in /home/bruce/.ssh/known_hosts:5
> debug1: ssh_rsa_verify: signature correct
> debug1: SSH2_MSG_NEWKEYS sent
> debug1: expecting SSH2_MSG_NEWKEYS
> debug1: SSH2_MSG_NEWKEYS received
> debug1: Roaming not allowed by server
> debug1: SSH2_MSG_SERVICE_REQUEST sent
> debug1: SSH2_MSG_SERVICE_ACCEPT received
> debug1: Authentications that can continue: publickey
> debug1: Next authentication method: publickey
> debug1: Offering public key: /home/bruce/.ssh/id_rsa.pub
> debug1: Server accepts key: pkalg ssh-rsa blen 279
> debug1: PEM_read_PrivateKey failed
> debug1: read PEM private key done: type <unknown>
> debug1: read_passphrase: can't open /dev/tty: No such device or address
> debug1: No more authentication methods to try.
> Permission denied (publickey).
>
> I edited the cron file using crontab -e and have verified that it is
> excecuting properly as user bruce.
>
> I googled around but found nothing that helps.  Why would the
> authentication work with direct execution, but fail with cron execution?
>  Does anyone have any ideas?
>
> Bruce
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>



-- 
Michael Wenk
mjwenk at ucdavis.edu