Hello All!

I am attempting to run a process written in Cobol using the Gnu Cobol
compiler and keep getting the follow when trying to run it:

Error opening terminal: unknown.

On the assumption that it is trying to run an application called terminal
which no longer exists how do I change the preset of that to what I do have installed which is qterminal.

Just can see any where within /etc/cron ... that does so nor does the man crontab help.

I am running Magiea v7 X64 with all updates.


Vincent


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On Thu, 26 Mar 2020 14:05:12 +0000, Vincent Coen wrote:

Hello All!

I am attempting to run a process written in Cobol using the Gnu Cobol compiler and keep getting the follow when trying to run it:

Error opening terminal: unknown.

It might have helped to show how you are getting cron to run whatever
you are doing.

I have seen some of my scripts complain about terminal things.
Since I want my scripts to run in cron or interactively, I test that
if running in cron, go ahead and set some terminal values.
all my scripts include a function/file to set desired default variables.

So here is a snippet from that include file:

tty --silent
export _cron_flg=$? # $?=0 interactive $?=1 cron

if [ $_cron_flg -eq 1 ] ; then
export COLUMNS=80
export LINES=24
export TERM=vt420
fi

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Hello Bit!

Thursday March 26 2020 14:41, Bit Twister wrote to All:

On Thu, 26 Mar 2020 14:05:12 +0000, Vincent Coen wrote:

Hello All!

I am attempting to run a process written in Cobol using the Gnu
Cobol compiler and keep getting the follow when trying to run it:

Error opening terminal: unknown.

It might have helped to show how you are getting cron to run whatever
you are doing.

I have seen some of my scripts complain about terminal things.
Since I want my scripts to run in cron or interactively, I test that
if running in cron, go ahead and set some terminal values.
all my scripts include a function/file to set desired default
variables.

So here is a snippet from that include file:

tty --silent
export _cron_flg=$? # $?=0 interactive $?=1 cron

if [ $_cron_flg -eq 1 ] ; then
export COLUMNS=80
export LINES=24
export TERM=vt420
fi

Do not fully understand the above but the program uses ncurses so runs in a terminal and I use qterminal as that is one of the few available in the
repos.

Checking it in via control center, software says :

QT-based multitab terminal emulator. Based on QTermWidget

Executing program uses 80 x 24 lines but does not need any response from a
user as it takes input from files only.

The crontab shows :

#Hourly
00 0-23 * * * $HOME/etc/hourly
10 0-23 * * * $HOME/bin/run-elist.sh UPDATE ALL SKIP-PASSWORD

It is the last line as the one before does the same error and I am trying
to find a fix ?

The content of the file run-elist.sh is :

#!/bin/bash
# 24/02/2020 vbc - v1.00 created
# 23/03/2020 vbc - v1.01 removed the exit RT so it get to top level for
testing
# when I get around to it.
#
cd /home/mbse/elist

if [ ! -d backups ]; then
mkdir backups
fi
if [ ! -d rules ]; then
mkdir rules
fi
if [ ! -d originals ]; then
mkdir originals
fi
#
#if [ $1 == ""]; then
# echo "No paramter given - Aborting"
#fi
#export COB_TRACE_FILE=/home/mbse/trace.log
#export COB_SET_TRACE=TRUE
# NEXT ONE for building or running Regression tests in REPORT
#export COB_CURRENT_DATE="2020/02/29 23:45:00"
#export LC_TIME=en_GB
#
/home/mbse/bin/elist $1 $2 $3 $4
exit

The first two export lines are some times set if I am debugging the program elist.

As you can see there are 3 params passed to elist UPDATE ALL SKIP-PASSWORD

If I run it manually from the kde screen I load qterminal which is preset
to use 80 wide by 40+ lines long then run the same script ( run-elist.sh ).

Comes to EOJ as expected, it is just trying to run it automatically every
hour this error comes up so I am assuming crontab find out it needs a
terminal to run in but has 'terminal' preset as the tool to use and in may
case instead of 'qterminal'.

So the issue seems to be possibly fixed if I can tell cron to run the right terminal program that in turns runs elist via script run-elist.sh.

Have I explained it better now ?



Vincent


SEEN-BY: 250/1 3

On Thu, 26 Mar 2020 13:58:29 -0400, Vincent Coen <VBCoen@gmail.com> wrote:

Thursday March 26 2020 14:41, Bit Twister wrote to All:

So here is a snippet from that include file:
tty --silent
export _cron_flg=$? # $?=0 interactive $?=1 cron

if [ $_cron_flg -eq 1 ] ; then
export COLUMNS=80
export LINES=24
export TERM=vt420
fi

Do not fully understand the above but the program uses ncurses so runs in a terminal and I use qterminal as that is one of the few available in the repos.

The script is simply setting variables some programs expect, if it's running in
interactive mode.

As cron jobs must be able to run without a tty (i.e. terminal), that script will
not help with running a program that accesses a tty.

The cron job may work with redirection ...
somecommand > /somefile.txt 2>&1 0</dev/null
but if the program uses direct i/o for the terminal, that will also fail, in which
case the answer is that the program simply can not be run as a cron job.

Another option might be to always leave a user logged in, and run the job using
a script in an open terminal, such as konsole that runs the program every hour.

Regards, Dave Hodgins


--
Change dwhodgins@nomail.afraid.org to davidwhodgins@teksavvy.com for
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Hello David!

Thursday March 26 2020 19:26, David W. Hodgins wrote to All:

Do not fully understand the above but the program uses ncurses so
runs in a terminal and I use qterminal as that is one of the few
available in the repos.

The script is simply setting variables some programs expect, if it's
running in interactive mode.

As cron jobs must be able to run without a tty (i.e. terminal), that
script will not help with running a program that accesses a tty.

Nope, the program runs totally stand alone once per hour.
It looks for two file extensions of .ECO and .RUL
It does a ls *.ECO *.eco *.rul *.RUL > fred
It them process fred and for each file present processes it updating a
database and may be produces report files.

That is it. For now I am trying an experiement having done a
ln -sf /usr/bin/qterminal /usr/bin/terminal

I will see in 15 minutes if it works but as it was possibly an easy fix I
am not holding my breath.

The cron job may work with redirection ...
somecommand > /somefile.txt 2>&1 0</dev/null
but if the program uses direct i/o for the terminal, that will also
fail, in which case the answer is that the program simply can not be
run as a cron job.

Another option might be to always leave a user logged in, and run the
job using a script in an open terminal, such as konsole that runs the program every hour.

That may well be the way I have to do it but then have to find a way of
doing just that - running the script once per hour.
Will be a pity if I have to have a user account open as it could be a bit
of a security hole.

Regards, Dave Hodgins

Thanks for the suggestion.


Vincent


SEEN-BY: 250/1 3

On Thu, 26 Mar 2020 17:58:29 +0000, Vincent Coen wrote:

Hello Bit!

Thursday March 26 2020 14:41, Bit Twister wrote to All:

On Thu, 26 Mar 2020 14:05:12 +0000, Vincent Coen wrote:

Hello All!

I am attempting to run a process written in Cobol using the Gnu
Cobol compiler and keep getting the follow when trying to run it:

Error opening terminal: unknown.

It might have helped to show how you are getting cron to run whatever
you are doing.

I have seen some of my scripts complain about terminal things.
Since I want my scripts to run in cron or interactively, I test that
if running in cron, go ahead and set some terminal values.
all my scripts include a function/file to set desired default
variables.

So here is a snippet from that include file:

tty --silent
export _cron_flg=$? # $?=0 interactive $?=1 cron

if [ $_cron_flg -eq 1 ] ; then
export COLUMNS=80
export LINES=24
export TERM=vt420
fi

Do not fully understand the above but the program uses ncurses so runs in a terminal and I use qterminal as that is one of the few available in the repos.

Just paste the above before or after your
cd /home/mbse/elist
line.

You may need to change export TERM=vt420 whatever you see with
echo $TERM
in your current terminal.

I can see this is commented out, but you need to have an exit Some_number_here Suggest you always have one. You also have a problem with the if statement. Sample fix to you code. :)

#if [ $1 == "" ]; then
# echo "No parameter given - Aborting"
# exit 1
#fi

All my scripts have
set -u # Show usage of unset variables as an error to help catch typos.


Since you are using
/home/mbse/bin/elist $1 $2 $3 $4
I would have something like
if [ $# -ne 4 ]; then
echo "
Incorrect number of arguments: $#
There should be 4 arguments
"
exit 1
fi

Problem with my suggestion is your cron job is running with just
3 arguments. :(

Easy fix
_required_args=4
if [ $_cron_flg -eq 1 ] ; then
_required_args=3
if

if [ $# -ne $_required_args ]; then
echo "
Incorrect number of arguments $#
There should be $_required_args arguments
"
exit 1
fi

Suggest you change
from /home/mbse/bin/elist $1 $2 $3 $4
to $HOME/bin/elist $1 $2 $3

If you use set -u

Checking it in via control center, software says :

QT-based multitab terminal emulator. Based on QTermWidget

Executing program uses 80 x 24 lines but does not need any response from a user as it takes input from files only.

The crontab shows :

#Hourly
00 0-23 * * * $HOME/etc/hourly
10 0-23 * * * $HOME/bin/run-elist.sh UPDATE ALL SKIP-PASSWORD

It is the last line as the one before does the same error and I am trying
to find a fix ?

The content of the file run-elist.sh is :

#!/bin/bash
# 24/02/2020 vbc - v1.00 created
# 23/03/2020 vbc - v1.01 removed the exit RT so it get to top level for testing
# when I get around to it.
#
cd /home/mbse/elist

if [ ! -d backups ]; then
mkdir backups
fi
if [ ! -d rules ]; then
mkdir rules
fi
if [ ! -d originals ]; then
mkdir originals
fi
#
#if [ $1 == ""]; then
# echo "No paramter given - Aborting"
#fi
#export COB_TRACE_FILE=/home/mbse/trace.log
#export COB_SET_TRACE=TRUE
# NEXT ONE for building or running Regression tests in REPORT
#export COB_CURRENT_DATE="2020/02/29 23:45:00"
#export LC_TIME=en_GB
#
/home/mbse/bin/elist $1 $2 $3 $4
exit

The first two export lines are some times set if I am debugging the program elist.

As you can see there are 3 params passed to elist UPDATE ALL SKIP-PASSWORD

If I run it manually from the kde screen I load qterminal which is preset
to use 80 wide by 40+ lines long then run the same script ( run-elist.sh ).

Comes to EOJ as expected, it is just trying to run it automatically every hour this error comes up so I am assuming crontab find out it needs a terminal to run in but has 'terminal' preset as the tool to use and in may case instead of 'qterminal'.

So the issue seems to be possibly fixed if I can tell cron to run the right terminal program that in turns runs elist via script run-elist.sh.

Have I explained it better now ?

Vincent

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On Thu, 26 Mar 2020 19:43:44 -0400, Vincent Coen <VBCoen@gmail.com> wrote:

That may well be the way I have to do it but then have to find a way of
doing just that - running the script once per hour.
Will be a pity if I have to have a user account open as it could be a bit
of a security hole.

Running it once per hour is easy. Have whatever desktop environment's autostart
run the script at login, in a terminal. Have the first executable line of the script be ...
echo "$0" | at now + 1 hour 2> /dev/null

That will run that script every hour. If you logout, the script will still
run, but will fail as the terminal will have closed.

If you want to stop the script running, open another terminal, use the
atq command to get the job number that's currently waiting to run and use
atrm $jobnumber
to stop it.

I don't remember off hand whether or not the "at" package is installed by default.

Regards, Dave Hodgins

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email replies.

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On Thu, 26 Mar 2020 22:28:35 -0400, David W. Hodgins <dwhodgins@nomail.afraid.org> wrote:

On Thu, 26 Mar 2020 19:43:44 -0400, Vincent Coen <VBCoen@gmail.com> wrote:

That may well be the way I have to do it but then have to find a way of
doing just that - running the script once per hour.
Will be a pity if I have to have a user account open as it could be a bit
of a security hole.

Running it once per hour is easy. Have whatever desktop environment's

autostart

run the script at login, in a terminal. Have the first executable line of

the

script be ...
echo "$0" | at now + 1 hour 2> /dev/null

Forgot to add, just lock the screen with that konsole or terminal still open, if you're leaving the system running unattended.

Regards, Dave Hodgins

--
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email replies.

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On 2020-03-26, Vincent Coen <VBCoen@gmail.com> wrote:

Hello David!

Thursday March 26 2020 19:26, David W. Hodgins wrote to All:

Do not fully understand the above but the program uses ncurses so
runs in a terminal and I use qterminal as that is one of the few
available in the repos.

The script is simply setting variables some programs expect, if it's running in interactive mode.

As cron jobs must be able to run without a tty (i.e. terminal), that
script will not help with running a program that accesses a tty.

Nope, the program runs totally stand alone once per hour.
It looks for two file extensions of .ECO and .RUL
It does a ls *.ECO *.eco *.rul *.RUL > fred
It them process fred and for each file present processes it updating a database and may be produces report files.

??? The program is designed to take information from the terminal and
give output to the terminal. When you start it, or the script, it looks
for the terminal, by looking at your environment. It finds nothing and
says AAAAARGH and issues the error message and gives up.
As stated, try redirecting the stdin stdout stderr (stdout and stderr
should be OK since they get redirected to the mailer in cron but stdin
is NOT OK. There is NO default it can use to get input. The program says
it wants input, there is nothing (no terminal) to get input from.
As Hodgin suggests, try redirecting 0 and see if that works. But the
program may specifically try to open a terminal and find none.

Try doing in a terminal
env|grep TERM

I get TERM=xterm-256color
But in cron that veriable is not set.
Another thing you could try (I have no idea whatsoever if this would
work) is to set the environment variable in teh cron entry as above
5 * * * * TERM=xterm-256color; <your command> 0</dev/null

That is it. For now I am trying an experiement having done a
ln -sf /usr/bin/qterminal /usr/bin/terminal

I will see in 15 minutes if it works but as it was possibly an easy fix I
am not holding my breath.

The cron job may work with redirection ...
somecommand > /somefile.txt 2>&1 0</dev/null
but if the program uses direct i/o for the terminal, that will also
fail, in which case the answer is that the program simply can not be
run as a cron job.

Another option might be to always leave a user logged in, and run the
job using a script in an open terminal, such as konsole that runs the program every hour.

That may well be the way I have to do it but then have to find a way of
doing just that - running the script once per hour.
Will be a pity if I have to have a user account open as it could be a bit
of a security hole.

Regards, Dave Hodgins

Thanks for the suggestion.

Vincent

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