[cobalt-developers] perl, cron, and shell commands

["Kevin D" <kdlists@xxxxxxxxx>]

I am trying to generate a cpu usage log and have it emailed to me every
evening. The log works by using the shell top command, which takes a
snapshot of the cpu usage at any given point. I set up 3 entries for a Perl
script in /etc/crontab, so that the script runs three times a day. I have
tested the perl script thoroughly on the command line, and it works
perfectly. However, whenever cron executes the script, the shell commmand in
perl doesn't execute properly. Here is the shell command taken directly from
the perl script:

$log = `top -n 1 -b`;

The $log variable receives the correct info when I run from the command
line. But when the script runs from crontab, the $log variable doesn't get
anything. Does anyone know why this is? Below is an example of my crontab
entry:

1 12 * * * root /home/sites/home/users/admin/bin/cpu_log-build.pl

I have tried a number of different things, like specifying the full path to
the top executable, and I have searched the knowledge base for everything
relating to cron.

Thanks,
Kevin DeMello