Error: EACCES when writing file using Node.js

Question

Error: EACCES when writing file using Node.js

I'm running into an error when attempting to run a cron job writing a JSON file.

Here's the code within my node file:

var request = require('request');
var fs = require('fs');
var url = "file url";

request.get(url, function(err, response, data) {
    if (err || response.statusCode != 200) {
        console.log('Error: ' + err);
        return;
    }

    var json = JSON.parse(data);
    var processed_json = JSON.stringify(transformJSON(json));

    fs.writeFile(__dirname + "/my_data.json", processed_json,
        function(err) {
            if (err) {
               console.log(err);
            }
    });
});

The error that the cron job gives is:

{ [Error: EACCES, open '.../my_data.json']
   errno: 3,
   code: 'EACCES',
   path: '.../my_data.json' }

The line within my crontab is:

* * * * * node web_scripts/converter.js

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

node.js
cron

Answer 1

I tested this on my Mac (Mavericks) and it works for me. The crontab runs and I get my_data.json in the folder where the script lives.

Most likely, the cron job doesn't have permission to write to web_scripts which is where the script lives. You can usually check /var/log/mail/$YOURUSER to see any cron results.

Here is how I typically set up the cron jobs:

touch ~/.crontab
vi ~/.crontab # add your cronjob
crontab ~/.crontab

Now you can tail the logs and make sure it runs, then check the mail for result. Again, this sounds like a permissions issue. You can also try writing temporarily to path everyone has full perms too, like /tmp, instead of resolving the path with __dirname.