From owner-freebsd-questions Sun Apr 5 08:19:34 1998 Return-Path: Received: (from majordom@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) id IAA29873 for freebsd-questions-outgoing; Sun, 5 Apr 1998 08:19:34 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG) Received: from flint.cyweb.com (root@cyweb.com [209.83.135.130]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id IAA29839 for ; Sun, 5 Apr 1998 08:19:29 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from harry@visiontm.com) Received: from hp.harry.com (dial-15.r04.scbuft.InfoAve.Net [206.74.202.215]) by flint.cyweb.com (8.8.0/8.6.9) with SMTP id KAA28080; Sun, 5 Apr 1998 10:28:59 -0500 From: "Harry Patterson" To: Cc: "freebsd-questions" Subject: Re: crontab problems Date: Sun, 5 Apr 1998 11:16:58 -0400 Message-ID: <01bd60a5$e09d08a0$f46190cf@hp.harry.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express 4.71.1712.3 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V4.71.1712.3 Sender: owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG Steve, After reading your last post I removed the root crontab "crontab -u root -r", changed the daily time to a current time as a test, then killed the process (I used kill -1 115 (the process for cron)), and the messages stopped and the daily ran. I had read the line you list below in man 5 crontab concerning the system crontab. What is hidden well is that you don't have to do anything (ie. crontab crontab) to activate the system crontab. I assume it is automatically checked every minute. This is where my problems began by performing a root level crontab crontab thinking this is the way to update the system crontab. Did I miss something in the man pages that explains how the system crontab is loaded and am I correct that the procedure is to edit /etc/crontab and restart the cron daemon? Sincerely, Harry Patterson >kill -HUP the cron daemon to get it to reread /etc/crontab. > >Well, it's kind of well hidden (i.e., amazingly poorly worded) in man >5 crontab: > > The format of a cron command is very much the V7 standard, > with a number of upward-compatible extensions. Each line has > five time and date fields, followed by a user name (with > optional ``:'' and ``/'' suffixes) if > this is the system crontab file, followed by a command. >"Harry Patterson" writes: > >> I've read and re-read the man pages and can't find the distinction between >> root's crontab and /etc/crontab (user level differences are obvious with the >> user field removed) . I assumed that the only way to change the "system" >> crontab was to edit it as root and perform a "crontab crontab" as root. Is >> there a different way? How does the system crontab take effect and how do >> you change it? > >kill -HUP the cron daemon to get it to reread /etc/crontab. > >Well, it's kind of well hidden (i.e., amazingly poorly worded) in man >5 crontab: > > The format of a cron command is very much the V7 standard, > with a number of upward-compatible extensions. Each line has > five time and date fields, followed by a user name (with > optional ``:'' and ``/'' suffixes) if > this is the system crontab file, followed by a command. > >-- > >Steve Farrell > > >To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org >with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message > To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message