From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Sat May 22 06:45:38 2004 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id B151D16A4CE for ; Sat, 22 May 2004 06:45:38 -0700 (PDT) Received: from sccmmhc92.asp.att.net (sccmmhc92.asp.att.net [204.127.203.212]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 7448C43D1D for ; Sat, 22 May 2004 06:45:38 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from david.fleck@mchsi.com) Received: from grond (12-216-14-105.client.mchsi.com[12.216.14.105]) by sccmmhc92.asp.att.net (sccmmhc92) with SMTP id <20040522134505m920036sr1e>; Sat, 22 May 2004 13:45:05 +0000 Date: Sat, 22 May 2004 08:45:04 -0500 (CDT) From: David Fleck Sender: dcf@grond.sourballs.org To: carvin5string In-Reply-To: <20040521141741.53444.qmail@web40403.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <20040522082220.I29103@grond.sourballs.org> References: <20040521141741.53444.qmail@web40403.mail.yahoo.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII cc: questions@freebsd.org cc: Bill Moran Subject: Re: cron can't find root or operator X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.1 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Sat, 22 May 2004 13:45:38 -0000 On Fri, 21 May 2004, carvin5string wrote: [...] > It would be nice to see some info about the differance between the > system and user crontabs and how to properly create and use a user > crontab, as well as when/why one would want to use a user crontab. I missed the earlier parts of this exchange, so forgive me if I'm repeating what's already been said. User crontabs allow specific users to run crons that are meaningful to them only, without cluttering up the system crons (or having to be root to make changes). Users create crontabs for themselves with the 'crontab -e' command. The format is described in the crontab(5) man page. If you already have a file written in the proper format, you can load it as your crontab by specifying 'crontab {filename}'. (That's what section 6.6.1 in the handbook is trying to say. Unfortunately, it is not at all clear on this.) For instance, I have the following cron for user dcf on my home system: dcf>$ crontab -l # run fetchmail, dump results to cronlog */15 * * * * /usr/local/bin/fetchmail --ssl -Z,571 >> /home/dcf/fetch.log # timestamp fetch.log 0 * * * * date >> /home/dcf/fetch.log # clean tex, lyx files out of home dir 0 1 * * * /home/dcf/.clean -- David Fleck david.fleck@mchsi.com