can't query upstart service status from cron job

Question

I'm running Ubuntu 14 and I added the following line to my crontab:

*/1 * * * * : testing; /usr/sbin/service my-service status > ~/status 2>&1

After the next minute rolls around, I see this in ~/status:

my-service: unrecognized service

If I run this from the terminal, it does recognize the service:

~$ /usr/sbin/service my-service status
my-service stop/waiting

I'm wondering what could be responsible for my service being unrecognized in the cron job's environment but not in my environment when I ssh to the server?

Answer 1

I found that this works:

*/1 * * * * : testing; /sbin/initctl status my-service > ~/status 2>&1

/usr/sbin/service works with SystemV jobs (e.g. those in /etc/init.d), and under Ubuntu it also sees Upstart jobs (e.g. those in /etc/init). /sbin/initctl works directly with Upstart jobs. So my guess is that the mechanism that allows /usr/sbin/service to see Upstart jobs isn't working for some reason in the environment my cron job runs in, but I'm not sure how to explore that further.