Logwatch question

[Kevin Passey]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "D u n c a n" <drack at mweb.co.zw>
To: "Kevin Passey" <kev at kdpsoftware1.demon.co.uk>; "General Red Hat Linux
discussion list" <redhat-list at redhat.com>
Sent: Monday, January 10, 2005 5:37 AM
Subject: Re: Logwatch question


> Your silence means you finally used google .
> Congrats
>
> Dunccs
>
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "Kevin Passey" <kev at kdpsoftware1.demon.co.uk>
> To: "Redhat-List (E-mail)" <redhat-list at redhat.com>
> Sent: Friday, January 07, 2005 11:36 AM
> Subject: Logwatch question
>
>
> Hi ,
>
> Simple one I hope.
>
> What does this mean on the logwatch report produced from my RHEL3 box.
>
> Thanks in advance.
>
> Kevin
> --------------------- Cron Begin ------------------------ 
>
> **Unmatched Entries**
>
> ORPHAN (no passwd entry)
>
> ORPHAN (no passwd entry)
>
> ORPHAN (no passwd entry)
>
> ORPHAN (no passwd entry)
>
> ORPHAN (no passwd entry)
>
> ORPHAN (no passwd entry)
>
> ORPHAN (no passwd entry)
>
> ORPHAN (no passwd entry)
>
> ORPHAN (no passwd entry)
>
> ORPHAN (no passwd entry)
>
> ORPHAN (no passwd entry)
>
> ORPHAN (no passwd entry)
>
> ---------------------- Cron End ------------------------- 
> -- 
No - it means I've not been at work !!!

Anyway you are right - I googled it and got this:

============================================
Yes it is an error.
You seem to be trying to create a crontab for a user that does not exist in
the passwd file. "crontab -e" tries to create a crontab for the logged in
user. Look in /var/spool/cron to see what users have crontabs, as well as
checking those with /etc/passwd for validity.

Cron expects each user who has an *individual* crontab file to be in
/etc/passwd. If your user does not have an account on the local machine this
may happen.

"crontab -e" edits or creates a crontab file for the current user and if
that user does not have a local account it fails. It also fails if users are
not permitted to create crontab entries but AFAIK with a different message.
=============================================
So when I look in /var/spool/cron I have :>>amanda  tmp.1868  tmp.1915 - I
expect amanda to be there - next question - what are the tmp files - they
are empty when look in them. Can I delete them?

Thanks D u n c a n for your help and courtious guidance.

Kevin