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Date: Wed, 15 Jan 1997 22:14:43 -0500 (EST)
From: Thomas David Rivers <ponds!rivers@dg-rtp.dg.com>
Message-Id: <199701160314.WAA05440@lakes.water.net>
To: ponds!freefall.cdrom.com!freebsd-hackers
Subject: cron problems in 2.1.6.1 (not signaling crond of a change in a crontab.)
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I just experienced an interesting problem... I'm wondering if
anyone else has seen it.

After installing 2.1.6.1 on a machine; I set up the crontab for
news (an older version of Cnews)...

As the "news" user; I used the "crontab" command to set up
the new crontab (not using /etc/crontab).

Then, the next day (today actually) I discovered many compressed 
news batches in /usr/spool/news/in.coming.

I scanned /var/cron/log to discover the entries from the crontab
had not been executed.

However - it had dutifully recorded my crontab manipulations.

After rebooting (and thus, restarting cron) things "began working."

My question is this:  When a new crontab entry is installed in the
system, should you have to do something to crond to get it recognized?
I didn't think so, but was wondering if anyone else had experienced this...

Here's the relevant /var/cron/log entries.  You'll notice two replaces
and many LISTs, as I was trying to determine why it wasn't running
the commands.  You'll also notice the STARTUP entry - issued after
rebooting the machine - then, without any REPLACE (using the crontab
previously entered) everything begins "working."


Jan 13 19:31:21 ponds crontab[2401]: (news) LIST (news) 
Jan 13 19:31:45 ponds crontab[2598]: (news) REPLACE (news) 
Jan 13 19:31:47 ponds crontab[2630]: (news) LIST (news) 
Jan 13 19:38:02 ponds crontab[6979]: (news) REPLACE (news) 
Jan 13 19:38:04 ponds crontab[7004]: (news) LIST (news) 
Jan 13 22:36:47 ponds crontab[7499]: (news) LIST (news) 
Jan 13 22:40:08 ponds crontab[7552]: (news) LIST (news) 
Jan 13 22:41:39 ponds crontab[7576]: (news) LIST (news) 
Jan 15 20:51:08 ponds crontab[613]: (news) LIST (news) 
Jan 15 20:52:15 ponds crontab[620]: (news) LIST (news) 
Jan 15 20:52:40 ponds crontab[623]: (news) LIST (news) 
Jan 15 20:56:39 ponds cron[139]: (CRON) STARTUP (fork ok)
Jan 15 21:00:00 ponds CRON[196]: (news) CMD (/usr/lib/newsbin/maint/newswatch) 
Jan 15 21:15:00 ponds CRON[212]: (news) CMD (/usr/lib/newsbin/input/newsrun) 
Jan 15 21:40:00 ponds CRON[1216]: (news) CMD (/usr/lib/newsbin/batch/sendbatches) 


My guess would be that the crontab REPLACE operation isn't properly 
signal'ing crond somehow....

	- Dave Rivers -