Problems with zabbix_sender and cron

[timuckun]

I have the following line in my crontab.

* * * * * root /usr/bin/zabbix_sender -z server.fqdn.com -s 'hostname' -k 'postgres.replication.lag' -o `/var/lib/postgresql/pg_standby_lag.rb` -vv


This works but it sends weird values to zabbix. If run the command line from a shell it sends the value as output from pb_standby_lag.rb which is a positive integer (number of seconds).

If I call the exact same line from cron the data comes in as a negative number.

I can trace the number that comes in from the zabbix log so I know when the right and wrong number are sent.

Why is the exact same script sending a different value from cron?

[richlv]

does the output of that ruby script depend in any way on environment variables and you are runing dcron ?
if so, be aware that dcron does _not_ preserve most of the environment and you must take care of that yourself.
to test this, you can just redirect script output to some file - like make it executed once every minute and do >>/tmp/somefile

[timuckun]

env variables.

does the output of that ruby script depend in any way on environment variables and you are runing dcron ?
if so, be aware that dcron does _not_ preserve most of the environment and you must take care of that yourself.
to test this, you can just redirect script output to some file - like make it executed once every minute and do >>/tmp/somefile

Well I am not sure if it does. It calls a postgres binary which might require some env variables though.

I'll try your trick and see what happens

[timuckun]

seems to be a locale issue?

does the output of that ruby script depend in any way on environment variables and you are runing dcron ?
if so, be aware that dcron does _not_ preserve most of the environment and you must take care of that yourself.
to test this, you can just redirect script output to some file - like make it executed once every minute and do >>/tmp/somefile

I dug a little further and it does seem like it's a locale issue.

When I run the command under the user account the locale is set to en_NZ.UTF8 under cron it seems to run as en_GB.UTF-8

I tried various LANG= and LC_ALL= on the cron line but to no avail.

How do I set the locale in a cron job? Do you know?

[richlv]

you can pass it just before you execute the command that needs the variable, or you can set in a wrapper script.
what exact syntax did you use ?

[timuckun]

solved

you can pass it just before you execute the command that needs the variable, or you can set in a wrapper script.
what exact syntax did you use ?

The trick was to pass the "right" lang in.

LANG=en_GB.UTF-8

That's in the environment of the postgres user so it has to be in the environment of the cron job that calls any binary from the postgres install.

Thanks for you help.