Debian 12: Dependency check incorrectly reports `cron` as missing

[Flux001337]

Title: Debian 12: Dependency check incorrectly reports cron as missing

Hello,

first of all, thank you for creating and maintaining this project. The Linux-ASA-Server-Manager is a great tool and makes running ARK: Survival Ascended servers on Linux much easier. I really appreciate the work that went into making this possible.

I found a small issue during the initial setup on Debian 12. The dependency check reports that cron is missing, although it is already installed and running.

Environment:

• OS: Debian 12 (Bookworm)
• Project: Linux-ASA-Server-Manager
• Installation user: non-root user (ark)
• Shell: bash

Description:

The installation script reports that cron is missing:

Warning: The following required packages are missing: cron
Please install them using the appropriate command for your system:
sudo apt-get install cron

However, cron is already installed:

# dpkg -l cron
ii  cron  3.0pl1-162  amd64  process scheduling daemon

and:

# systemctl status cron
Active: active (running)

The dependency check fails because it uses:

command -v cron

On Debian 12 this returns no result because the cron daemon binary is located in /usr/sbin/cron.

The user command is available:

$ which crontab
/usr/bin/crontab

Suggested fix:

Instead of checking for the cron executable:

if ! command -v "${cmd}" >/dev/null 2>&1; then

handle cron separately and check for crontab:

if [ "$cmd" == "cron" ]; then
    if ! command -v crontab >/dev/null 2>&1; then
        missing+=("$cmd")
    fi
elif ! command -v "${cmd}" >/dev/null 2>&1; then
    missing+=("$cmd")
fi

or alternatively check the Debian package using dpkg-query:

dpkg-query -W -f='${Status}' cron

Expected behavior:

On Debian systems with cron installed, the dependency check should continue without reporting cron as missing.

[aftek]

what does command -v crontab return for you ? and what is echo $? says then ?

[Flux001337]

command -v crontab returns:

/usr/bin/crontab

and:

echo $?

returns:

0

So crontab is installed and available through the current PATH.

My understanding is that command -v crontab checks whether the crontab command can be found by the shell and, if found, returns the path to the executable.

An exit status of 0 means that the command was found successfully.

This is why checking for crontab works on my Debian 12 system, while command -v cron does not find the cron daemon.

I can also confirm that the suggested workaround fixed the issue on my Debian 12 system.
The dependency check no longer reports cron as missing.

[aftek]

Using a docker image debian:12

root@4f8b28ea2ae2:/# which cron          
root@4f8b28ea2ae2:/# echo $?
1
root@4f8b28ea2ae2:/# command -v cron
root@4f8b28ea2ae2:/# echo $?
1
root@4f8b28ea2ae2:/# which crontab 
root@4f8b28ea2ae2:/# echo $?
1
root@4f8b28ea2ae2:/# command -v crontab
root@4f8b28ea2ae2:/# echo $?
1

then after apt update && apt install cron

root@4f8b28ea2ae2:/# which cron
/usr/sbin/cron
root@4f8b28ea2ae2:/# echo $?
0
root@4f8b28ea2ae2:/# command -v cron 
/usr/sbin/cron
root@4f8b28ea2ae2:/# echo $?
0
root@4f8b28ea2ae2:/# which crontab
/usr/bin/crontab
root@4f8b28ea2ae2:/# echo $?
0
root@4f8b28ea2ae2:/# command -v crontab
/usr/bin/crontab
root@4f8b28ea2

I don't know how to help without more details 🙈

My tests were done in docker run -it --rm debian:12

[Flux001337]

In my Case:

After apt update && apt install cron

root@hfbsd3d1n12s :/home/ark # which cron          
root@hfbsd3d1n12s :/home/ark # echo $?
1
root@hfbsd3d1n12s :/home/ark # command -v cron         
root@hfbsd3d1n12s :/home/ark # echo $?
1
root@hfbsd3d1n12s :/home/ark # which crontab
/usr/bin/crontab          
root@hfbsd3d1n12s :/home/ark # echo $?
0
root@hfbsd3d1n12s :/home/ark # command -v crontab         
/usr/bin/crontab
root@hfbsd3d1n12s :/home/ark # echo $?
0

Description:    Debian GNU/Linux 12 (bookworm)