[SOLVED] Can't edit crontab with vim

montagdude · 11-23-2018, 10:42 PM

This is kind of a strange one that I've noticed before but haven't bothered to post until now. On Slackware64-14.2, when I do this:

Code:

EDITOR=/usr/bin/vim crontab -e

The crontab file is opened in vim as expected. However, when I make changes, save, and view the crontab again, it is apparent that the changes were not actually saved. The issue does not occur with other editors. Can anyone confirm?

chris.willing · 11-24-2018, 02:24 AM

Code:

sudo EDITOR=/usr/bin/vim crontab -e

followed by

Code:

crontab -l

shows that the edit worked OK here. I don't normally use vim so I have no special configuration set up for it - maybe that's significant (maybe not).

chris

MDKDIO · 11-24-2018, 02:30 AM

I never use vim, but gave it a try now...
Changed the default hourly cron jobs 47 min to 45 min and saved/exit.
Reopening the file and the changes are still there...

What steps do you take to edit/save crontabs?

montagdude · 11-24-2018, 06:01 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by MDKDIO

What steps do you take to edit/save crontabs?

I simply do this:

Code:

su -
EDITOR=/usr/bin/vim crontab -e
(make edits and then :wq)
crontab -l

And the changes do not show up. If I use a different editor, the changes do show up.

Alien Bob · 11-24-2018, 06:44 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by montagdude

This is kind of a strange one that I've noticed before but haven't bothered to post until now. On Slackware64-14.2, when I do this:

Code:

EDITOR=/usr/bin/vim crontab -e

The crontab file is opened in vim as expected. However, when I make changes, save, and view the crontab again, it is apparent that the changes were not actually saved. The issue does not occur with other editors. Can anyone confirm?

Vim has these lines in /usr/share/vim/vimrc :

Code:

" Make vim work with the 'crontab -e' command
set backupskip+=/var/spool/cron/*

It could be that you somehow have an older version of that file where the backupskip line is not present (as was the case in older versions of Slackware).

montagdude · 11-24-2018, 07:38 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Alien Bob

Vim has these lines in /usr/share/vim/vimrc :

Code:

" Make vim work with the 'crontab -e' command
set backupskip+=/var/spool/cron/*

It could be that you somehow have an older version of that file where the backupskip line is not present (as was the case in older versions of Slackware).

That was it. Thanks!

MDKDIO · 11-24-2018, 05:58 PM

Good reading you got it sorted