[rancid] Need some Help - F5's in RANCID

[Jethro R Binks]

On Thu, 30 Jun 2011, Lee wrote:

> Well!!  It doesn't seem to depend on NOPIPE.  rancid run manually to 
> collect F5 configs works -- with NOPIPE set or clear.  Rancid run from 
> crontab sometimes works, sometimes not.
> 
> Unless someone beats me to it (hint, hint :) I'll try to figure out next 
> week if it's an env. variable setting missing from the crontab run 
> that's causing the problem

If something works from crontab but not from the command line, then the 
classic explanation is that there is something in the environment that's 
different.

You can simply run the "env" command from cron and examine the mail output 
to see what environment cron jobs run within.  Then you can replicate that 
at the command line and see if that fixes the problem, and then further 
modify the environment to see what breaks.

However, if it "sometimes" works from cron and sometimes not, then it is 
unlikely to be the environment I'd say.  Maybe something else: any NFS 
automounting going on?  Clashing with some other job (do the failures 
happen in particular windows in time)?  Check the cron logs to see what 
else may be running at the time.  Is it one F5 host or all of them that 
fail?  Maybe it is host-related.

Jethro.

.  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .
Jethro R Binks, Network Manager,
Information Services Directorate, University Of Strathclyde, Glasgow, UK

The University of Strathclyde is a charitable body, registered in
Scotland, number SC015263.