Using Mandrake 10.0 community (i586)

Just tried setting up a crontab in /etc/crontab (as root)

here's the file:

SHELL=/bin/bash
PATH=/sbin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin
MAILTO=root
HOME=/

# run-parts
01 * * * * root nice -n 19 run-parts /etc/cron.hourly
02 4 * * * root nice -n 19 run-parts /etc/cron.daily
22 4 * * 0 root nice -n 19 run-parts /etc/cron.weekly
42 4 1 * * root nice -n 19 run-parts /etc/cron.monthly
*/5 * * * * root date >> /root/date

The original entries (run-parts) work fine, but the last entry (which works OK from the command line) never gets run (or it fails to complete).

I've reloaded with "crontab crontab" but still to no effect.

Any ideas?

Carl

Can you explain what you are trying to do? The command date gives the date currently set by the bios.

why are you trying to set up crontab? it should already be running, just go "crontab -e" and put the jobs you want to run in there?

TigerOC,

That's just a test command which should work doing exactly as you say. I've not included the real one as the test one isn't working.

andredude,

I created the crontab in exactly the manner you describe. The original entries (run-parts) are OK, the last line never gets run.

I've checked the /var/log/cron entries. No errors, no warnings, and the info file never mentions the last line.

Heeeelp.

Its probably worth looking at cron and what it does. It is intended to run shell scripts at defined times. I have a couple running on my system so I'll use one as an example.
I want to keep my /home partition backed-up on an hourly basis to a non-mounted hard drive (hda6). I use rsync to do this so I created the following script;

#!/bin/bash
##mount /dev/hda6 on /mnt
mount -t ext3 /dev/hda6 /mnt
##backup files to hda6
rsync --delete-after -avH /home/ /mnt/backup/home > /var/log/backup.log
##umount hda6
umount /dev/hda6

The script is self explanatory. The script is made executable. There was no cron.hourly on my system so I created it and put the script in. I then edited /etc/crontab and inserted the line;

10 * * * * root /etc/cron.hourly/backup

at 10 past each hour /home is backed up and the output is sent to /var/log/backup.log

I think the problem you have is that the date command has no output. Make a script;

#!/bin/bash
#send date to text file
date > /home/your_usr_name/date.txt

make it executable chmod 700 ./date put it into one of the cron.* dirs and edit crontab as above.

Thanks for that TigerOC

The date >> /root/date command does have an output, but ....

I tried the method of creating an executable script, no joy.

In the end i've got it working though, here's how:

The line "crontab crontab" seems to copy the /etc/crontab file into the user's own crontab file. So when I did a "crontab -e" I had the "run-parts" bit in there. Leaving that produced an error email from crond stating that the command "root nice -n 19 run-parts /etc/cron.hourly" could not be found. Not suprising as a user crontab has no user element, only the command.

I therefore removed the "run-parts" section from the crontab -e and also removed the "root" reference. Still no good.

In desperation, I did a crontab -e and deleted the lot.

Adding the required line into the /etc/crontab file (as the first line rather than the usual last one) it worked! - Whoppee!

Just in case anyone knows:

Can root have a user crontab?
If so, is this a problem?
Is there an issue in adding lines to /etc/crontab after the run-parts?

Cheers,

Carl.

Hi Carlmarshall -- Cron is not very smart about paths. I just checked
in my debian system nice is really /usr/bin/nice but date is /bin/date. (Found that out with which nice and which date). The general advice
in cron scripts is to explicitly code the path to each command.
The fact that "it works when I don't run it through cron" doesn't cut
any ice. Cron's paths are different. Let me know if this helps.

Thanks for the reply pcardout, however that's not the issue as both date and nice are now working once I got rid of the root user crontab, and the paths are specified in the path= section.

Carl.

Hey

I'm trying to set up a my cron daemon, however, I have no /etc/crontab

Should I just make one? If so, what type of file is it?

Hamish

Use crontab command

crontab -ujohn -l lists the crontab file for user john
crontab -ujohn -e edits it (creates it if needed)

If john doesn't have rights you have to do this, create a file
/etc/cron.allow (with an ordinary editor) and put the name john in it.