LinuxQuestions.org - [SOLVED] I have deleted crontab by mistake

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I have deleted crontab by mistake

Hi Guys,

I just made a big mistake. I was accessing my box externally (ssh) and accidentally deleted my crontab. I never used crontab before and issued the command "crontab -d" instead of "crontab -e" to edit and add my cronjob. I am pretty useless because I had no back up of my crontab of course :(
First question, is there going to be any direct issue on my box because of the crontab being erased ? (I am assuming so but do not know what type of problems..)
Lastly, would I be lucky enough so that there is a way to recover my crontab ? (having gone through Google and whatnote, I doubt it).

Thank you for your help Guys,

Kind Regards,

Quote:

First question, is there going to be any direct issue on my box because of the crontab being erased ?

Well, the cronjob won't be executed any more.
The direct issue will depend on the cronjob you erased.

Quote:

Lastly, would I be lucky enough so that there is a way to recover my crontab ? (having gone through Google and whatnote, I doubt it).

Since you have no backup, I don't think you can recover it.

Kind regards

repo, thanks for your reply.
the incidence would be that none of the cronjobs that were there would be executed anymore as they are all gone --> OK, but would those cronjobs be similar to all slackware 13.1 install ? If yes, I could just ask someone with a slackware 13.1 install for all the cronjobs and recreate all of them. The point being is that i did not see the type of jobs that were in it so i have no clue the effects of those jobs not being executed.

Depends, did you erased them as user or as root?
What is the output from

Code:

crontab -l

Take a look at /etc/cron to see the crontabs still installed.
AFAIK crontab -d will only erase the contabs you created, not the system crontabs like cron-daily,cron-weekly...

Kind regards

Ops, it looks like the coffee didn't kick in yet... :)

crontab -d will delete the crontab of the user that ran it. Like repo said, the "system" crontabs (i.e. /etc/cron.daily, /etc/cron.weekly and etc.) should be "safe" even if you ran crontab -d as root.

Quote:

Originally Posted by maxmiorim (Post 4137512)

Not quite. The root crontab file is what runs the jobs in those directories.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Richard Cranium (Post 4137739)

Not quite. The root crontab file is what runs the jobs in those directories.

You are right.
If the OP did crontab -d as root,
best option is to reinstall dcron.

Kind regards

I did reinstall dcron but to no avail.
The dcron was still installed and I still have no scripts that run cron.daily/weekly/hourly/monthly..
I am in the process of installing a vm and will have look in it to see what can be done in that regards. Worst case scenarios, I will reinstall slack on my box.

Kind Regards,

Quote:

Originally Posted by riganta (Post 4137866)

Worst case scenarios, I will reinstall slack on my box.

Don't reinstall the whole OS just cause you deleted a crontab.

If you had a root crontab that had the original entries from an original install, just edit crontab as root and paste this into corntab.

as root do:

Code:

crontab -e

and then paste this code into and save it.

Code:

# If you don't want the output of a cron job mailed to you, you have to direct

# any output to /dev/null.  We'll do this here since these jobs should run

# properly on a newly installed system, but if they don't the average newbie

# might get quite perplexed about getting strange mail every 5 minutes. :^)

#

# Run the hourly, daily, weekly, and monthly cron jobs.

# Jobs that need different timing may be entered into the crontab as before,

# but most really don't need greater granularity than this.  If the exact

# times of the hourly, daily, weekly, and monthly cron jobs do not suit your

# needs, feel free to adjust them.

#

# Run hourly cron jobs at 47 minutes after the hour:

47 * * * * /usr/bin/run-parts /etc/cron.hourly 1> /dev/null

#

# Run daily cron jobs at 4:40 every day:

40 4 * * * /usr/bin/run-parts /etc/cron.daily 1> /dev/null

#

# Run weekly cron jobs at 4:30 on the first day of the week:

30 4 * * 0 /usr/bin/run-parts /etc/cron.weekly 1> /dev/null

#

# Run monthly cron jobs at 4:20 on the first day of the month:

20 4 1 * * /usr/bin/run-parts /etc/cron.monthly 1> /dev/null

That was the crontab from my Slackware 13.1 install that I just did two days ago, and there's no additional edits, so you may have had the exact same thing if you ran 13.1 with no changes.

udaman,

Thanks a lot for your help. The crontab you posted helped a lot. I created a VM and got the exact same content. I recreated all the cron jobs and all his back to normal.

Thanks again guys for all your help. Much appreciated.

Kind Regards,

riganta,

I'm glad I could be of some help. Cheers!