[SGVLUG] Cron question

[Michael Proctor-Smith via SGVLUG]

If you don't want to do it as root, or your normal account do it. Then
create a new user to do it, don't reuse an existing system account. With
cron jobs the place you normal fail is that from cron you don't have normal
user path stuff added as it is not a login shell.

But in seem like you are solving a solved problem that we have all gone the
road of. That being wanting to access your network remotely and having a
dynamic ip address. So if I may suggest looking into one of the free
dynamic dns services (DDNS) and save yourself the trouble of having to
check email to find your home ip address. Many home routers will
automatically update DDNS when there ip address changes.

On Tue, May 16, 2017 at 11:20 AM, Bryan Pesterfield via SGVLUG <
sgvlug at sgvlug.net> wrote:

> Hello all,
>
> I have a script I wrote to monitor my external ip and send me an update
> via email when it changes (it checks ipv4.icanhazip.com, so no parsing
> necessary). While the books and webpages I have looked at so far make it
> appear easy to set up a cron job, I am unsure of what user should be used
> to run the job (since nothing I looked at specified what accounts should be
> used, they appear to be indifferent to it).
>
> It didn't seem very secure to have root or myself (aka a regular user) run
> the job, so I am hesitating on setting it up until I know what account
> should be used to run it. Do I have a system account do it, or do I set up
> an unique account just for it? What's the best way to do this?
>
> Thanks in advance,
> Bryan Pesterfield
>
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