cron "BAD FILE MODE"

[Timothy Murphy]

Matthew Miller wrote:

>> ====================================
>> Feb  6 16:06:51 martha crond[6266]: (*system*) BAD FILE MODE
>> (/etc/cron.d/fetchmail.cron)
> 
> "File mode" is another word for permissions.
> 
>> ====================================
>> in /var/log/cron when I add what seems
>> a perfectly good 1-line file
>> ====================================
>> 5,15,25,35,45,55 * * * * tim /usr/bin/fetchmail alfred
>> ====================================
>> as /etc/cron.d/fetchmail.cron and restart crond.
> 
> If you do an ls -l on this file, what are the permissions? My guess is
> that you've left it world-writable, but it's possible that cron is being
> really picky and wants it to not group-writable either. In any case, do:
> 
>   chmod 0644 /etc/cron.d/fetchmail.cron

Thanks, that did indeed solve the problem.
I'm slightly baffled, as I had what I thought was exactly the same setup 
on another identical machine and it seemed to work fine.
However, that is one of the many computer mysteries in my life ...


-- 
Timothy Murphy  
e-mail (<80k only): tim /at/ birdsnest.maths.tcd.ie
tel: +353-86-2336090, +353-1-2842366
s-mail: School of Mathematics, Trinity College, Dublin 2, Ireland