FC" Cron Error - Newbe Question

[Erik Hemdal]

> 
> ------------------------------
> 
> Message: 3
> Date: Sun, 26 Sep 2004 20:15:32 +0100
> From: Robert Slade <robert at bathnetworks.com>
> Subject: Re: FC" Cron Error - Newbe Question
> To: For users of Fedora Core releases <fedora-list at redhat.com>
> Message-ID: <1096226132.3203.4.camel at lmail.bathnetworks.co.uk>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8
> 
> On Sat, 2004-09-25 at 12:27, Markku Kolkka wrote:
> > Robert Slade kirjoitti viestissn (lhetysaika lauantai, 25. syyskuuta 2004 09:57):
> > > My Crontab looks like this:
> > 
> > Which crontab is this really? _Your_ crontab (the one created by running
> > "crontab -e") or the file /etc/crontab? The syntax for these files is different.
> 
> It is the root crontab, all I have done is edited it with crontab -e (as
> root) to add the run-tasks.

Hi Robert:

It looks like the file is combining entries for /etc/crontab (the system
crontab file) and root's personal crontab /var/spool/cron/root.  This is
not going to work smoothly. 

To edit /etc/crontab, do not use 'crontab -e'.  Simply use vi or your
favorite editor.  Using crontab -e as root will edit the file
/var/spool/cron/root (it will create a personal cron file for any user
who tries 'crontab -e').

If you edit this file by becoming root and using 'crontab -e', then you
have root's personal crontab.  You can take the entire section for
run-parts out, because it's 1) not going to work correctly and 2) still
being run from /etc/crontab unless that file has been changed.

Entries in /etc/crontab can run jobs for any user, so you must specify
the user in each entry.  The personal crontab files run all jobs as the
specific user, so the username is not included.

As it stands, the entries for run-parts are trying to run a command
called 'root' with arguments of 'run-parts /etc/....'.  These lines
don't belong here.

If you need to execute run-parts from this file, take the 'root' out of
each line.  But you should not have to do this unless /etc/crontab has
been damaged or removed from the system.



I hope this makes sense and helps.

Erik
 

These entries are correct inside of /etc/crontab

> > > # run-parts
> > > 01 * * * * root run-parts /etc/cron.hourly
> > > 02 4 * * * root run-parts /etc/cron.daily
> > > 22 4 * * 0 root run-parts /etc/cron.weekly
> > > 42 4 1 * * root run-parts /etc/cron.monthly

These entries belong in /var/spool/cron/root

> > > # run-tasks
> > > 0 2 * * * /usr/bin/freshclam --quiet -l /var/log/clam-update.log
> > > 0 3 * * * /var/qmail/bin/qmailstats  1>/dev/null 2>/dev/null
> > 
You can fix them if you must use /var/spool/cron/root with 
> > # run-tasks
> > > 0 2 * * * root /usr/bin/freshclam --quiet -l /var/log/clam-update.log
> > > 0 3 * * * root /var/qmail/bin/qmailstats  1>/dev/null 2>/dev/null

> Rob