Shell bad interpreter problem

Question

I moved my system from ubuntu 9 to debian 5 and the cron each time that try to execute a script throws...

-bash: ./somescript.sh: /bin/sh^M: bad interpreter: No such file or directory

all my scripts begin with

#!/bin/sh

any clue ? should I change the shell cron is running ? it is using another shell ?

Answer 1

That ^M bit makes me think that your script uses CR-LF line endings. This usually happens when you edit a file using a Windows text editor.

To fix it, install the tofrodos package and convert the file:

sudo aptitude install tofrodos
fromdos -b /path/to/script.sh

Answer 2

You have carriage returns in your document (Probably edited with a Windows program). You need to run:

cat somecript.sh | tr -d '\r' > somescript2.sh

Make sure that you use a new file name like I did in my example (somescript2.sh). You can read this blog post for the full story.