Hi, I am trying to synchronize my clock every hour through a cron job.

'crontab -u root -l' gives me:
# DO NOT EDIT THIS FILE - edit the master and reinstall.
# (/tmp/crontab.12634 installed on Mon Jan 1 12:25:32 2001)
# (Cron version -- $Id: crontab.c,v 2.13 1994/01/17 03:20:37 vixie Exp $)
26 * * * * /usr/sbin/ntpdate north-america.pool.ntp.org

yet it does not work, but I am sure the ntpdate command is working because I can run it from the command line.

I think the cron dameon is running beacuse 'ps aux|grep cron' gives me:
root 12013 0.8 0.2 1400 596 ? Ss 11:54 0:22 cron
root 12902 0.0 0.1 1520 484 pts/0 R+ 12:37 0:00 grep cron

Am I overlooking anything?

Thanks in advance.

Not sure if you're overlooking something, but here is how I handle mine on Slackware 10.1 (running 'crontab -e' doesn't work for me - something to do with my editor settings).

As root I do the following:

cd /var/spool/cron/crontabs/
vi cron_holder (make entries/edits, save changes)
crontab cron_holder

This creates a cron.update file in the same directory that gets processed on the next cron cycle (not sure if I'm explaining it right) and copies your changes into the 'root' file which is run by cron - editing the 'root' file directly is a bad idea and the changes won't go into affect.

Hope that helps.

Well, I think you can always edit the cron job by simply using 'crontab -e'.

If you want to schedule the job as root or someone, you can su to root (or that someone else) before you do 'crontab -e'

As for tassinari's issue, my guess is the cron job definition does not like the space in the command. Try wrap this command in a shell script.

i.e. put the lines
into, says, time.sh (make sure the x permission are set on this file)

then crontab -e and change the line into

Hopefully it works.

what are the mails your crontab retuns?

if you dont have any: add this to your crontab in the first line (just for debug purposes!)
MAILTO=you@example.com

Thanks to everyone for their help but the problem fixed itself. I woke this morning and started the computer and the cron job ran. I changed nothing from last night. My guess is the cron dameon wasn't working last night but did work this morning after booting. Why it was'nt working last night is beyond me though.

Thanks again!

Linux = when all else fails, reboot
Windows = first step, reboot

When, in this case, you do not have to reboot either... :-)

If you are confident that your job definition is fine but it's justing not running, you may try

first to check if there is any crond processes stalled.

I saw this kind of problem before. If it is the case, kill the crond and that's. No need to reboot.

I'm wondering whether setting up the NTP service wouldn't be easier than the cron job. Yes, you do need to track down a suitable time server (see the lists on http://ntp.isc.org/bin/view/Servers/WebHome) but once that's done it's pretty much "set and forget".

rnturn is right. I'd overlooked the real issue.