From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Tue Oct 31 19:49:33 2006 Return-Path: X-Original-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org 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 493F316A5F4 for ; Tue, 31 Oct 2006 19:49:33 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from martin@dc.cis.okstate.edu) Received: from dc.cis.okstate.edu (dc.cis.okstate.edu [139.78.100.219]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id B899443D88 for ; Tue, 31 Oct 2006 19:49:24 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from martin@dc.cis.okstate.edu) Received: from dc.cis.okstate.edu (localhost.okstate.edu [127.0.0.1]) by dc.cis.okstate.edu (8.13.3/8.13.3) with ESMTP id k9VJnOVN003318 for ; Tue, 31 Oct 2006 13:49:24 -0600 (CST) (envelope-from martin@dc.cis.okstate.edu) Message-Id: <200610311949.k9VJnOVN003318@dc.cis.okstate.edu> To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-ID: <3313.1162324164.1@dc.cis.okstate.edu> Date: Tue, 31 Oct 2006 13:49:24 -0600 From: Martin McCormick Subject: Re: Trouble-shooting Cron Problems FreeBSD5.4 X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Tue, 31 Oct 2006 19:49:33 -0000 Dan Nelson writes: > The "operator" user has no access to /etc/crontab. You have probably > copied entries from the system crontab (i.e. /etc/crontab) into a > user's crontab. The system crontab has the extra "user" column, where > user crontabs don't (since they always run as the user). > Thank you. That is exactly what happened. I checked the working system by doing crontab -e -u operator and there was no crontab there at all. I then went to the ailing system and, voila, there was the copy of /etc/crontab complete with all its comment lines. I remember being confused at one stage about /etc/crontab because of the line \# /etc/crontab - root's crontab for FreeBSD After all, the root user also has a crontab file with the normal user fields (minus the special 6TH field). Somewhere along the way, I probably typed either crontab -u operator crontab from /etc or did a crontab -e -u operator and joined /etc/crontab in to the new table. Remember the saying that goes, "Nothing can be made foolproof because fools are so ingenious?" That pretty well says it all. I am not sure how I figured it might need to go in the operator account, but that's where it wound up. I am sure that solves the problem. I'll know in 15 minutes when the next newsyslog command fires and I don't get the squawk.:-) Martin McCormick WB5AGZ Stillwater, OK Systems Engineer OSU Information Technology Department Network Operations Group