cronie doesn't have the proper environment variables set

[Neo-Oli]

Problem description
When a cronjob with cronie is run only the following environment variables are set

USER=u0_a84
HOME=/data/data/com.termux/files/home
LOGNAME=u0_a84
PATH=/data/data/com.termux/files/usr/bin:/data/data/com.termux/files/usr/bin/applets
LANG=en_US.UTF-8
SHELL=/data/data/com.termux/files/usr/bin/sh
PWD=/data/data/com.termux/files/home

Busybox's crond used to just set the enivronment variables that it was started with including the very important BOOTCLASSPATH, ANDROID_DATA, LD_PRELOAD, $PREFIX, ANDROID_ROOT, TZ and TMPDIR that some programs, most notably termux-api commands, require to run.

Steps to reproduce
Create a cronjob that runs any termux-api command like termux-vibrate.
To get environment variables create a cronjob containing env > $HOME/environment and read that file.

Expected behavior
The environment variables that termux programs need to run and are set by default should also be set in cronie cronjobs

[ghost]

Thanks, that should be fixed in 3e2a16f.

[Neo-Oli]

Hmm... I can't actually get to run any cronjobs with this new version. Does it still work for you?

[ghost]

Ok, will check it. Also need to add TZ and LD_PRELOAD to kept variables list.

Note that crond writes info to syslog. If there issues, you can try to look logcat | grep cron.

[Neo-Oli]

Nothing special in the logcat. It claims it is running the cronjobs but nothing is actually happening. When downgrading to 1.5.5 they run as expected. The logcat is the same for both versions.

[ghost]

@Neo-Oli I have found issue. We have regression in ndk-headers, someone removed patch for _PATH_DEFPATH which results in incorrect PATH setting for crond.

Now it picks binaries from /system/bin, but not from $PREFIX/bin.

[ghost]

Works now, tested with crontab * * * * * termux-notification -t "$(date)".

[Neo-Oli]

@xeffyr I can confirm that it works now. Thanks for looking into this.

[Shivam623]

Hi, I am using .bashrc file to put my environment variables and it is not working. What I am missing?

[ghost]

@Shivam623 You are missing that .bashrc is only for interactive shells. Try to put your variables into ~/.profile or ~/.bash_profile instead.

[Shivam623]

Hi @xeffyr , I tried putting in both of the file but it doesn't work on Termux. :(

I tried * * * * * printenv>>envlog.text

I got all the default variables but not the one I set under ~/.profile or ~/.bash_profile.

[ghost]

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/2229825/where-can-i-set-environment-variables-that-crontab-will-use

[Shivam623]

haha! @xeffyr I am on the same page, trying the suggestions. Fingers cross.

[Shivam623]

so, * * * * * .$HOME/.profile; python <>/.test.py

this worked for me. Finally!

Thanks a lot @xeffyr