Cannot run cronjob at reboot

User Support General
1

I have edited the crontab on dom0 using the command:

$ crontab -e

And added the following lines in it:

# Run the script disabling the touchpad once
# at every reboot
@reboot bash /home/tanky0u/.local/bin/disable_touchpad

The disable_touchpad script is a simple one. And it works successfully when I call the bash to execute it manually:
$ bash /home/tanky0u/.local/bin/disable_touchpad

However, when I reboot the QubesOS, the TouchPad is still functional, and thus I believe the cronjob isn’t executed.

How can I get this cronjob executed in dom0?

Edit: For the sake of clarity, here’s the full content of disable_touchpad script:

#!/bin/bash
# disable_touchpad -- Disables the TouchPad using xinput.

# Find the device ID of the TouchPad
declare -i ID
ID=`xinput --list | grep -Eo 'TouchPad\s*id\=[0-9]{1,2}' | grep -Eo '[0-9]{1,2}'`

# Disable it
xinput --disable $ID
2

It shouldn’t be necessary given that you’re calling the script with bash, but it might be worth trying to making the script executable:

chmod +x /home/tanky0u/.local/bin/disable_touchpad

I checked online and there’s a few questions on stackoverflow. One solution was to rename the script to make it end with .sh.

3

Well, I have tried

  1. Renaming the script to a .sh extension. Updating the crontab accordingly. And rebooting. Didn’t work.

  2. Reverting the script to a name without the .sh extension. Then doing the chmod +x on it. Updating the crontab accordingly. And rebooting. Didn’t work.

  3. Renaming the script to a .sh extension while keeping the chmod +x rights of the file. Updating the crontab accordingly. And rebooting. Didn’t work.

So I tried these but to no solution, unfortunately. What might be causing this?

4

I’d suggest you to use the systemd instead.

5

Hmm… this seems to be a problem that’s plaguing debian/ubuntu distros; which makes sense given I have made Debian as the default distro in my QubesOS (so the dom0 must also be a debian OS).

So, schucks!, I just wanted to get a script execute once per QubesOS boot and not deal with systemd stuff that I do not understand. I wasn’t expecting to bump into an esoteric bug about @reboot.

6

What do you mean?

Unless you have made some big changes, that’s not the case.

7

During installation of QubesOS, there was an option to pick Debian (or fedora) as the default (template?) distro.

8

That means that the default template for newly created vms is going to be debian. dom0 is still based on fedora.

You can check/change with gui by running qubes-global-settings or cli with qubes-prefs default_template.

9

Well then that @reboot bug isn’t isolated to Debian. Fedora seems to suffer from it, too.

10

Alright, I ended up using i3 config file to run the script I wanted to run at each boot into my user as follows:

exec --no-startup-id "sh /home/tanky0u/.local/bin/disable_touchpad

So, I no longer try to get @rebootworking in crontab, nor am I trying to get a custom-made .service file under systemd folder.