Crontab updating without -e

Shodan30 · 08-01-2011, 11:21 AM

Hello,

I'm trying to evoke a crontab change automatically as part of an update. I'm using SuseLinux and I think i can just replace the /var/spool/cron/tab/scs file but all the cron manual pages say not to do that, also im unsure if changing this file by copying over it will immediately accept the changes since I'm not specifically telling it that I've edited it. Is there a way to refresh the crontab once its been replaced without actually -e editing it manually?

Thanks

colucix · 08-01-2011, 11:28 AM

You might save the output of crontab -l to a file, e.g.

Code:

crontab -l > /tmp/my_crontab

then edit the file using sed or some other tool at your choice, then reinstall the crontab from the file using:

Code:

crontab /tmp/my_crontab

You may want to remove the initial commented lines added to the crontab -l output in OpenSuSE. To do this on-the-fly you can use process substitution:

Code:

crontab <(sed '/^#/d' /tmp/my_crontab)