From owner-freebsd-doc@FreeBSD.ORG Fri Jul 4 08:17:51 2003 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-doc@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id BFA0037B404 for ; Fri, 4 Jul 2003 08:17:51 -0700 (PDT) Received: from rwcrmhc11.comcast.net (rwcrmhc11.comcast.net [204.127.198.35]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id E9A0B4400E for ; Fri, 4 Jul 2003 08:17:48 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from lowell@world.std.com) Received: from be-well.ilk.org (be-well.no-ip.com[24.147.188.198]) by comcast.net (rwcrmhc11) with ESMTP id <20030704151748013007rov2e>; Fri, 4 Jul 2003 15:17:48 +0000 Received: from be-well.ilk.org (lowellg.ne.client2.attbi.com [24.147.188.198] (may be forged)) by be-well.ilk.org (8.12.9/8.12.9) with ESMTP id h64FHkro003005; Fri, 4 Jul 2003 11:17:47 -0400 (EDT) (envelope-from lowell@world.std.com) Received: (from lowell@localhost) by be-well.ilk.org (8.12.9/8.12.6/Submit) id h64FHkWZ003002; Fri, 4 Jul 2003 11:17:46 -0400 (EDT) X-Authentication-Warning: be-well.ilk.org: lowell set sender to lowell@world.std.com using -f Sender: lowell@be-well.no-ip.com To: rdm@cfcl.com (Rich Morin), freebsd-doc@freebsd.org References: From: Lowell Gilbert Date: 04 Jul 2003 11:17:46 -0400 In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <44of0a5nj9.fsf@be-well.ilk.org> Lines: 26 User-Agent: Gnus/5.09 (Gnus v5.9.0) Emacs/21.3 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Subject: Re: format of /etc/crontab? X-BeenThere: freebsd-doc@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.1 Precedence: list List-Id: Documentation project List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Fri, 04 Jul 2003 15:17:52 -0000 rdm@cfcl.com (Rich Morin) writes: > The cron(8) man page (on my FreeBSD 4.7 system) says: > > Cron searches /var/cron/tabs for crontab files which are named after > accounts in /etc/passwd; crontabs found are loaded into memory. Cron > also searches for /etc/crontab which is in a different format (see > crontab(5)). > > The crontab(5) man page, however, says nothing about any differences in > the file formats. Instead, it appears to describe only the format that > is used in /var/cron/tabs/* files. > > I would like to know precisely how the format of /etc/crontab differs, > but I can't find any man page that addresses this. Help? It does, actually: 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. In other words, the difference is whether there is a user name specified just before the command to be executed