Ray Alvarez

Brother, Jen's right, it's a path thing. Two of em actually. 1. Cron runs with a bare-bones environment. Your venv isn't activated, so python3 is the system Python, which doesn't have requests. The script dies on the import. 2. You never see the error because cron has nowhere to send the output. No mail server on that VM, so it goes in the bit bucket. Fix both in one line. Absolute paths for everything, and send the output to a log: */5 * * * * cd /home/ray/pinger && /home/ray/pinger/.venv/bin/python pinger.py >> /home/ray/pinger/cron.log 2>&1 The cd matters if your script opens hosts.txt or writes results.csv with a relative path. To confirm cron actually fired at all: grep CRON /var/log/syslog Once that works, look at systemd timers. Output goes to journalctl for free and you can test the unit by hand with systemctl start. That's what we run at work. My 2 cents.

BLUF: Brett's right on all of it. Here's the full fix, I did this exact thing two years ago. 1. Top of the resume, a 3-line summary in civilian: "IT and communications technician with 12 years managing networks, radios and secure systems for the US Army. Security+ certified, active TS/SCI. Transitioning to systems administration." 2. Every bullet = action + what + number + result. "Supervised 9 Soldiers" becomes "Led a 9-person technical team maintaining radio and network equipment across 4 sites; trained 6 new technicians to certification." 3. Kill every acronym except Security+ and TS/SCI. Read it out loud to someone who never served. Every time they say "what's that", rewrite. 4. Add a Projects section with your Python/Linux stuff. That motor pool CSV script you mentioned in the course group? It goes on there. "Wrote a Python tool that flags overdue vehicle sign-outs, used daily by the unit." Real users = real project. 5. Apply to cleared defense contractors first. Your clearance is a cheat code there. Tier 2 help desk at a cleared contractor is a great first landing. Send it to me when it's done. Never too old, never too early.

From the sysadmin side: "maintained 100% accountability of $2.1M in equipment" translates directly to asset management and change control, which is half of a real sysadmin job and the half most juniors cannot do. Say that. Cheers, G.