I’m trying to move away from cron jobs, not that they don’t work, but I want to get on with the times and also learn some things.

I created two user timers (and the associated services), one for backing up my data and the second to upload to B2. I’m using two scripts I had in my cron jobs for a few years and they worked without problems. But with systemd timers both scripts fail with exit code 15 (process terminated) and I have no idea why.

I run Debian 12 Bookworm.

Here’s the output for the status of the upload service:

> systemctl --user status rclone-up.service
○ rclone-up.service - Run rclone up for b2
     Loaded: loaded (/home/clmbmb/.config/systemd/user/rclone-up.service; disabled; preset: enabled)
     Active: inactive (dead)
TriggeredBy: ● rclone-up.timer

Apr 11 06:10:39 tesla systemd[1698218]: Starting rclone-up.service - Run rclone up for b2...
Apr 11 06:12:18 tesla systemd[1698218]: rclone-up.service: Main process exited, code=killed, status=15/TERM
Apr 11 06:12:18 tesla systemd[1698218]: rclone-up.service: Failed with result 'signal'.
Apr 11 06:12:18 tesla systemd[1698218]: Stopped rclone-up.service - Run rclone up for b2.
Apr 11 06:12:18 tesla systemd[1698218]: rclone-up.service: Consumed 12.811s CPU time.

Also, here’s the log created by rclone while running:

2024/04/11 06:10:42 INFO  : integrity.2376: Copied (new)
2024/04/11 06:10:43 INFO  : hints.2376: Copied (new)
2024/04/11 06:10:43 INFO  : nonce: Copied (replaced existing)
2024/04/11 06:10:47 INFO  : config: Updated modification time in destination
2024/04/11 06:10:55 INFO  : index.2376: Copied (new)
2024/04/11 06:11:40 INFO  :
Transferred:      443.104 MiB / 2.361 GiB, 18%, 16.475 MiB/s, ETA 1m59s
Checks:              1503 / 1503, 100%
Transferred:            4 / 19, 21%
Elapsed time:       1m0.8s
Transferring:
 *                                   data/2/2328: 19% /502.259Mi, 2.904Mi/s, 2m19s
 *                                   data/2/2329: 52% /500.732Mi, 10.758Mi/s, 22s
 *                                   data/2/2330: 14% /501.598Mi, 3.150Mi/s, 2m15s
 *                                   data/2/2331:  0% /500.090Mi, 0/s, -

2024/04/11 06:12:18 INFO  : Signal received: terminated

Where should I look to get some more information about what’s going on? Why would the service be terminated like that?

LE:

Setting TimeoutSec=infinity inside the [Service] section of the unit file seems to help. Not 100% if it’s a good idea, but I’ll experiment with it.

  • calm.like.a.bombOPEnglish
    4•7 months ago
    [Unit]
Description=Run rclone up for b2

[Service]
Type=oneshot
ExecStart=/zet/Users/radu/backup/rclone_up.sh

[Install]
WantedBy=rclone-up.timer
    • @somethingsomethingidk
      6•7 months ago

      You could try setting TimeoutStopSec=“infinity” for the service. There may be a default timeout for services and its killing rclone before it can finish because the oneshot type is considered “starting” until the program exits.

      • @[email protected]
        7•7 months ago

        TimeoutStopSec applies to the ExecStop command, TimeoutStartSec would be the culprit here. I’m not sure why there would be a default timeout of specifically 1:39 minutes though.

        • @somethingsomethingidk
          6•7 months ago

          Yeah you’re right, it’s time for bed lol

          The default start timeout is disabled by default for oneshot.

    • @[email protected]
      3•7 months ago

      Does your script fork at some point (and might exit before the rsync job is completed)? Because then you need to use Type=forking instead of simple or oneshot, otherwise systemd will start trying to clean up child processes when the script exits.

      Edit: Actually considering the time span involved Type=forking will not solve your issue because it will timeout, if this is the problem you need to change your script to not do that.

      • calm.like.a.bombOPEnglish
        5•7 months ago

        No, my script doesn’t fork and I don’t think rclone does that either.

        Here’s the script (pretty simple):

        #!/bin/bash

repos=(fotorepo multirepo persorepo appconfigs)

if pidof -x rclone >/dev/null; then
  echo "Process already running"
  exit 1
fi

for repo in "${repos[@]}"; do
    inidate=$(date +'%Y%m%d_%H%M%S')
    /usr/bin/rclone -v --log-file=/backup/borg/logs/${repo}_b2sync_${inidate}.log sync /backup/borg/${repo} b2:${repo}
    if [[ $? -eq 0 ]]; then
      MSGDATE=$(date +'%d/%m/%y %T')
      mesaj="[${MSGDATE}] Upload for ${repo} was successful."
      curl -H "Title: B2 Upload" -H "Tags: arrow_double_up" -d "${mesaj}" "${URL}"
      #sendmsg "[${MSGDATE}] Upload for <b>${repo}</b> was <b><u>successful</u></b>."
    else
      MSGDATE=$(date +'%d/%m/%y %T')
      mesaj="[${MSGDATE}] Upload for ${repo} has failed. Check the logs."
      curl -H "Title: B2 Upload" -H "Tags: warning" -H "prio:high" -d "${mesaj}" "${URL}"
      #sendmsg "[${MSGDATE}] Upload for <b>${repo}</b> has <b><u>failed</u></b>. Check the logs."
    fi
    enddate=$(date +'%Y%m%d_%H%M%S')
    mv /backup/borg/logs/${repo}_b2sync_${inidate}.log /backup/borg/logs/${repo}_b2sync_${enddate}.log
done
        • @[email protected]
          2•7 months ago

          Indeed, that all looks fairly innocuous. Just in case, you are sure that you didn’t just accidentially kill or killall rclone or bash?

          Perhaps wrapping the script in strace might help debug where the offending signal is coming from.

          • calm.like.a.bombOPEnglish
            4•7 months ago

            Just in case, you are sure that you didn’t just accidentially kill or killall rclone or bash?

            No. The process runs at night. Only if my dog started learning Linux and tested something! That makes me wonder…