From owner-freebsd-doc Wed Jul 19 14:44:34 2000 Delivered-To: freebsd-doc@freebsd.org Received: from scientia.demon.co.uk (scientia.demon.co.uk [212.228.14.13]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id B14FF37C10F for ; Wed, 19 Jul 2000 14:44:28 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from ben@scientia.demon.co.uk) Received: from strontium.scientia.demon.co.uk ([192.168.91.36] ident=exim) by scientia.demon.co.uk with esmtp (Exim 3.15 #1) id 13F1UM-000Go2-00 for doc@freebsd.org; Wed, 19 Jul 2000 22:34:46 +0100 Received: (from ben) by strontium.scientia.demon.co.uk (Exim 3.15 #1) id 13F1UM-000IuL-00 for doc@FreeBSD.org; Wed, 19 Jul 2000 22:34:46 +0100 Date: Wed, 19 Jul 2000 22:34:46 +0100 From: Ben Smithurst To: doc@FreeBSD.org Subject: FAQ: "root: not found" messages from cron Message-ID: <20000719223446.D75784@strontium.scientia.demon.co.uk> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: multipart/signed; micalg=pgp-md5; protocol="application/pgp-signature"; boundary="sXc4Kmr5FA7axrvy" Content-Disposition: inline User-Agent: Mutt/1.2i Sender: owner-freebsd-doc@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.org --sXc4Kmr5FA7axrvy Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable This is another question I've seen once too often... Does anyone have any objections to my proposed answer? Index: book.sgml =3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D= =3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D= =3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D RCS file: /usr/cvs/doc/en_US.ISO_8859-1/books/faq/book.sgml,v retrieving revision 1.75 diff -u -r1.75 book.sgml --- book.sgml 2000/07/19 17:24:48 1.75 +++ book.sgml 2000/07/19 21:31:02 @@ -4317,6 +4317,44 @@ =20 =20 + + + Why do I keep getting messages like root: not + found after editing my crontab file? + + + + This is normally caused by editing the system crontab + (/etc/crontab) and then using + &man.crontab.1; to install it: + + &prompt.root; crontab /etc/crontab + + This is not the correct way to do things. The system + crontab has a different format to the per-user crontabs + which &man.crontab.1; updates (the &man.crontab.5; manual + page explains the differences in more detail). + + If this is what you did, you should delete the + /var/cron/tabs/root, since it will + simply be a copy of /etc/crontab, + in the wrong format. Next time, when you edit + /etc/crontab, you should not do + anything to inform &man.cron.8; of the changes, since it + will notice them automatically. + + The actual reason for the error is that the system + crontab has an extra field, specifying which user to run the + command as. In the default system crontab provided with + FreeBSD, this is root for all entries. + When this crontab is used as the root + user's crontab (which is not the + same as the system crontab), &man.cron.8; assumes the string + root is the first word of the command to + execute, but no such command exists. + + + How do I mount a secondary DOS partition? =20 --=20 Ben Smithurst / ben@FreeBSD.org / PGP: 0x99392F7D FreeBSD Documentation Project / --sXc4Kmr5FA7axrvy Content-Type: application/pgp-signature Content-Disposition: inline -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: PGPfreeware 5.0i for non-commercial use MessageID: QRGgHCIx+gkIBcHY0rve3+eZHZh4I9Sb iQCVAwUBOXYe9isPVtiZOS99AQFSlgP/SuCgKDecSQEQa/TlaIAyGj2/qbBRuVkK 9esX2qRq+RJ3odb7XC/YlvE/wiLBpnJOclKSfsWDJ8X0cxmSDsNpJO2B2OCYWvOn zGDWiu95NjXRlAlZYPdTg7rhv6XTEuRx2x1lnmW/yWtFRfekYJoC5XI0180Z/for NhZg2wMSlIo= =ma/p -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- --sXc4Kmr5FA7axrvy-- To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-doc" in the body of the message