Comments on: Running cron on Cygwin

By: James Yuan

James Yuan — Wed, 15 May 2013 02:33:51 +0000

I resolve it by
a) Add “StrictHostKeyChecking no” in /etc/ssh_config
b) Copy .ssh to / , that is the cron job reads /.ssh folder.

By: James Yuan

James Yuan — Mon, 22 Apr 2013 01:30:17 +0000

Yes, the HOME is /root:
drwxr-xr-x+ 1 SYSTEM root 0 Apr 19 18:30 root

And its .ssh:
drw——-+ 1 SYSTEM root 0 Apr 17 14:32 .ssh

Also the /etc/passwd file:
SYSTEM:*:……:/root:/bin/bash

By: subogero

subogero — Fri, 19 Apr 2013 05:53:10 +0000

If you don’t use passphrases, you don’t need ssh-agent at all.
You mentioned you’re running this cron job in SYSTEM’s name.
Does SYSTEM have a home directory and a .ssh folder in it?
It’s necessary.

By: James Yuan

James Yuan — Fri, 19 Apr 2013 03:52:09 +0000

Thanks.
Actually no paraphrase on my private keys. And use your script, it still fails in Cygwin.

By: subogero

subogero — Thu, 18 Apr 2013 18:23:45 +0000

I’ve written another post about using ssh-agent:
http://linux.subogero.com/corporate-git/ssh/

ssh-agent basically stores the plain decrypted versions of encrypted passphrase-protected private keys in memory and sends in to ssh through the ssh-socket upon request. The goal is to avoid having to enter the passphrase upon every usage of ssh.
In order to achieve this, it’s not enough to start ssh-agent. You also have to add you private key once to the agent by entering the passphrase. That’s what the ssh-add command is for.

By: James Yuan

James Yuan — Thu, 18 Apr 2013 09:59:22 +0000

@subogero

It still doesn’t work after
a) Open a Cygwin window (as a user) and run ssh-agent. It tells me
SSH_AUTH_SOCK=/tmp/ssh-cklVtBKR3bJZ/agent.6500; export SSH_AUTH_SOCK;
SSH_AGENT_PID=6980; export SSH_AGENT_PID;
echo Agent pid 6980;

2) Add the above environments into the cron script (as a SYSTEM), and a “ssh-add” command.

3) It outputs after ‘git pull origin master’
Host key verification failed.
fatal: The remote end hung up unexpectedly

Also tried to add these two lines, same errors.

/usr/bin/keychain $HOME/.ssh/id_rsa
. ~/.keychain/`/bin/hostname`-sh

I am sure /root/.ssh/id_rsa.pub (SYSTEM $HOME is /root) is uploaded into the github.com.

By: subogero

subogero — Wed, 17 Apr 2013 09:06:07 +0000

First test whether you are able to do git push/pull manually.
If so, it means that the connection/authentication works and you have a cron-specific problem.

cron jobs run in a limited environment, unlike your login shell.
If you’re using ssh-agent, you have to set the SSH_AUTH_SOCK variable in the crontab manually.

SSH_AUTH_SOCK=/home/xxxxx/.ssh/.ssh-socket
* * * * * ssh foo@bar ls > logfile 2>&1

By: James Yuan

James Yuan — Wed, 17 Apr 2013 08:14:34 +0000

Hi，

Thank you for guide on the cron in Cygwin. It works well for me.

Now I have another problem that cron a job (as SYSTEM for domain users) to git pull/push from github.com. But it is always failed because “Host key verification failed. fatal: The remote end hung up unexpectedly” even I have uploaded the ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub to github.com.

Did you encounter this or any guide for me?

Thanks,
James.