'at' command and apache user

[Rick Stevens]

On 06/16/2011 04:41 PM, Cameron Simpson wrote:
> On 16Jun2011 18:58, Gary Stainburn <gary.stainburn at ringways.co.uk> wrote:
> | Hopefully this is a quickie.  I've written a Perl script which
> | 
> | 1) I call to initialise - this then schedules another run using the 'at' 
> | command
> | 
> | 2) is run by 'at' at the appropriate time to carry out the required task
> | 
> | This works fine under the developer user but when I call it from PHP in my web 
> | server the 2nd part fails and generates the following email.
> | 
> | Subject: Output from your job       17
> | From: Apache <apache at ringways.co.uk>
> |   To: apache at ringways.co.uk
> |   Date: Today 18:51:00
> |    
> | This account is currently not available.
> | 
> | I have tried creating /etc/at.allow and adding apache. /etc/at.deny us empty
> | 
> | it still doesn't work. Can anyone suggest what I need to do next please.
> 
> Might the account be "locked"? Check out the /etc/shadow file - "!!"
> instead of "x" in the crypt field. May as well check the account has a
> shell too: /bin/sh instead of /bin/false.

Indeed, that's it.  The "at" command runs a shell as the user who
submitted the job.  User "apache" generally is not a valid login user
(can't run a shell), so the "at" job can't run.

Note that this is also true if you try to do cron jobs for a user that
hasn't got shell access.
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