Cron job for email retrieval failing, but running from cli works fine

houstonbofh

Trying to set up automated email retrival. I have tried the following in /etc/crontab;
*/5 * * * * www-data "/usr/bin/php /var/www/html/osTicket/upload/api/cron.php"
And in the root user crontab I tried */5 * * * * "/usr/bin/php /var/www/html/osTicket/upload/api/cron.php" and they both fail with;
Dec 2 10:35:01 osticket CRON[19124]: (root) CMD ("/usr/bin/php /var/www/html/osTicket/upload/api/cron.php")
Dec 2 10:35:01 osticket CRON[19122]: (CRON) info (No MTA installed, discarding output)

But when I run it as root or as a user in the www-data group, it runs clean and pulls email when I type;
/usr/bin/php /var/www/html/osTicket/upload/api/cron.php

This is Ubuntu 22.04 with php8.2 and osTicket 1.18.2 installed.

KevinTheJedi

houstonbofh

Remove the double quotes from the command part.

Cheers.

houstonbofh

Adding on, when I try and send a agent password reset I get the error;
Unable to email via Sendmail Unable to send mail: Unknown error

But if I use the diagnostic in the email setup it sends clean...

KevinTheJedi

houstonbofh

That’s likely because you don’t have proper SMTP configured. If you do then it’s not set as default system email, default alert email, and default MTA in system email settings.

Cheers.

houstonbofh

Damn... Bit myself here. Tried the double quotes in a hail Mary and forgot to remove them. Switching to nobody like in the other thread and removing the double quotes did it. It works now and my /etc/crontab is;

*/5 * * * * nobody /usr/bin/php /var/www/html/osTicket/upload/api/cron.php

Thank you again! And I am taking notes. I will have an Ubuntu install helpful hints post at the end with all the surprises I found.