Good Morning,

I am new to Linux and so still have a lot to learn ...

I have a file called crontab in /etc/crontab, and I can edit it using
vi /etc/crontab.

I have an entry, as follows ...

0/1 * * * * ~/public_html/swordfish/call_centre/cron/auto_report_fred.sh

BUT cron does NOT run it. Why not ?

Another problem is when I use the crontab command 'crontab -e' to edit the crontab file, it creates a new one and does not see my manual changes.

I have also tried create a crontab file like this 'crontab <filename>'
but that reoprts the following error ....

no crontab for root - using an empty one

How do I use crontab correctly ??

regards,

Steven M

Try using the full path rather than ~

What do you mean by manual changes?

Moin,

the /etc/crontab you use is a system wide crontab file and has a special syntax, which differs from "ordinary" user crontab files:
When you edit a crontab file using "crontab -e" (which I would prefer, it's not sure that a manual editing of a crontab file is noticed by the cron daemon), then you edit the user's crontab, not the system's file.

Besides that: You should keep in mind, that the cron daemon doesn't know the environment, which is defined when you log in. You should use absolute path names every time and define all environment variables you use in your script.

Jan

Hi all,

I have a similar problem that I don't seem to understand. My /etc/crontab looks like:



This should make it so that mrtg runs every 5 minutes, however the cron job doesn't even run at all. When I look at the cron logfile, there are no errors or signs that it even tried to execute that line. It's like if it didn't exist.

I've tried scheduling a simple shell script that just creates a folder to see if the issue was mrtg related, but I nothing I add to crontab executes.

I tried editing the /etc/crontab manually and via "crontab -e". I get the same results. Am I missing anything?

BTW this is on Fedora 8.

Thanks in advance,

Moin,

I think your problem is another. Are you sure that your cron is running? Are you (and root) are allowed to use cron?

Jan

Original Code:Try this:

or

You are running a shell program and depending upon the permissions set for the file you need to make sure that it executes a shell to run it.

Replace (pathname) with the full pathname of the file.

As a general point, if cron has a problem running a job, it usually sends a mail to the crontab's owner and/or root. Just use the cli mailx program to check.

Yes, Cron is running (I'm logged in as root whenever I set up a cron job anyway). My scripts have 0775 permissions.

This is true, but Cron has to attempt to run the job first. If it doesn't even know it needs to run it, then no emails will be sent out.

When I look at the var/logs/cron all I see is the stuff that runs hourly and daily being executed, nothing about what I set up.

Moin,

hm, then you should check:
1. Are there entries from cron in the system's messages or warn files?
2. Is cron running as root? Has cron the permissions to read the crontab files?
3. Like I already said: Are there restrictions defined in the cron/allow or cron/deny files?
4. Is cron running in a chroot environment - does he read his configuration from another directory?
5. Does a crontab job (a simple shell script like "/bin/ls /etc") run if you create a cron job for another user (use "crontab -e")?
6. Is a security extension like SELinux active on your system?

The questions may be silly, but somewhere you have to start looking for an answer

Jan

Using "crontab -e" as root, add a line
Note the deletion of the username "root"

Perhaps this thread will shed a bit of light on things

http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...rontab-382120/

Thanks all for you help, I got it working

Whenever I would do crontab -e, crontab would not save any of the commands I was typing, but I found an article where they suggested making the editor = vi. Once I did that I was able to save my contents and crontab is now working as expected.

Thanks again.

I'm running into a similar problem as well and have tried several ways to fix it but just can't seem to get this working right.

My crontab seems to be working as I can enter in a line to append to a file, create a file, etc. However, my line for MRTG doesn't seem to work. I can copy and paste that exact command into my prompt and it runs but I just can't get it to run every 5 minutes.

I have tried editing via 'vi /etc/crontab', crontab -e (on root account and nagios account). I have tried putting a user in the crontab entry. I have tried adding '.' and 'sh' into the entry. I have also verified that the permissions to the needed files are all as they should be. By everything I am seeing this should be working without a problem.

I have also tried to specify the exact time it should run and it still doesn't. Is there something else I am missing??

Thanks!
Tony

Moin,

is there a mail message from the cron daemon for the user, for which you installed the cron job? Normally the cron writes a mail containing errors and stdout from your jobs.

A possible reason: crontab jobs do not get the same environment as logged in users. Probably an environment variable is missing.

Jan

Unfortunately I never to work using the /etc/crontab file. I had to use crontab -e. For some reason editing the user's crontab file manually would not work for me either.

When you use crontab -e to add that entry, have to checked in /var/spool/cron to see if that user's crontab has been created? If so, have you check to make sure that whatever you entered in the vi editor actually got saved.

If you've modified the user's crontab manually for whatever reason, use crontab -e to remove whatever entry you made to the file manually, save and quit. Then try to add your entry again using crontab -e.

This is what worked for me a few days ago when an entry would not work for me.

always use crontab -e

don't edit it directly.
or the cron daemon doesn't know it's been changed.
also it checks for errors.