Cron stops openSuse 10.2

Rich Thomson · 08-06-2012, 09:05 PM

openSuse 10.2. chkconfig has cron "on". Boot the system, service cron status shows "unused". service cron start shows "running". exit out of root, su back in, service cron status shows "unused" again. Same problem on hundreds of systems (because all from the same image, naturally). Not sure if it was always this way or if I just noticed it. With this version of the O/S it is cron, instead of crond. google searches not enlightening. ideas to pursue?

Resolved - 10.2 does not support the @reboot option.

unSpawn · 08-08-2012, 08:07 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rich Thomson

Resolved - 10.2 does not support the @reboot option.

Then it must be cronie or something as Vixie-cron does support it. BTW you could probably emulate "@reboot" using /etc/rc.d/rc.local by adding a line

Code:

/usr/lib/cron/run-crons &

if you want to run all cronjobs (though that would be odd) or

Code:

/path/to/jobfile &

if you just want to run a single job or

Code:

/usr/bin/at -f /path/to/jobfile now

if you have the "at" service running at boot and prefer handing it off that way. If you use /etc/rc.d/rc.local across different SuSE versions and releases then you could prefix a check so this only affects 10.2 this way

Code:

grep -q -m1 '.10\.2' /etc/issue /etc/*release && /usr/bin/at -f /path/to/jobfile now

HTH

Rich Thomson · 08-09-2012, 07:20 AM

Thanks for the tips, I'll try those. Turns out the problem isn't cron @reboot, it's something in the job that turns cron off. I'll figure that out.