[rancid] missed cmds, but only when run from cron

[heasley]

Wed, Aug 14, 2013 at 12:22:01AM +0000, Brent Wiese:
> This is boggling my mind.
> 
> I slightly modified the f5rancid script to work with their version 11 TMOS. Basically, all it does is "show running-config" and then runs "quit" instead of "exit" when it finds the prompt.
> 
> This has been working just fine for our existing load balancers. But we recently added a new set. The first run appears to work. Then I start getting this in the logs:
> 
> 
> starting: Tue Aug 13 17:02:11 MST 2013
> 
> cvs add: lb01.my.domain already exists, with version number 1.4

that is odd; is the being added to the routers.all file properly?  I do not
expect it to try to add a file thats already been there.  though, that is
not related to the problem below.

> Added lb01.my.domain
> 
> Trying to get all of the configs.
> lb01.my.domain: (v11) missed cmd(s): show running-config
> lb01.my.domain: (v11) End of run not found
> #
> 
> I don't get it - if I run f5rancid_v11 (my modified copy), it runs just fine and the ".new" file is there with all the info I need. It's only when it's run from cron that it throws any kind of error. F5login runs fine too (or f5rancid_v11 would fail). I added the "(v11)" in the log line area to confirm it's running the correct script when it does rancid-run.
> 
> Since it's logging errors, I don't think it's any kind of permissions error. But I am running as the same user as the cron job.
> 
> All my other configs are coming in and diff'ing just fine, so I don't think it's a CVS issue (or the ability to write temp files for example).
> 
> Any ideas?

Often this is either timing or termcap/termios related.  since the f5
appears to be a rather kinky animal, i'd first investigate the terminal
setting.  That's either coming from cron or rancid.conf; look there, set
it on your tty and try running f5rancid_v11 - i suspect it'l be angry.
find something that doesnt make it angry and force/set it in f5rancid_v11.