Date: Tue, 07 Mar 2000 19:01:59 -0600 From: David Kelly <dkelly@hiwaay.net> To: Matthew West <mwest@uct.ac.za> Cc: mark <mark@itsunix.uwc.ac.za>, freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Crontabs Message-ID: <200003080101.TAA08106@nospam.hiwaay.net> In-Reply-To: Message from Matthew West <mwest@uct.ac.za> of "Tue, 07 Mar 2000 17:37:10 %2B0200." <20000307173710.A21007@apotheosis.org.za>
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Matthew West writes: > On Tue, Mar 07, 2000 at 11:19:49AM +0200, mark wrote: > > I'm have a problem with the crontabs ..... in Solaris 2.7 > Why are you asking Solaris questions on a FreeBSD list? Back off. Its not as if he was asking Windows questions. He's probably asking here because there is a good chance *we* know the answer. Plus any Unix issue should be fair game here if somehow FreeBSD differs from another Unix. > > I have added this line to the root crontab located in /var/spool/cron/crontabs/ > You'll probably have better luck with "crontab -e". I forgot if Solaris has "-e". If not then you have to "crontab -l > temp_cronfile", use your favorite editor on that file, then put it back with "crontab < temp_cronfile" Hey! I'd bet mere users are not allowed into /var/spool/cron/crontabs/ meaning Mark was editing somebody's crontab as root? Maybe it was root's crontab. You have to pass the crontab file thru the crontab executable in order for cron to know things have changed. I think. Altho the manpage for FreeBSD's Vixie cron says it wakes up ever minute and checks for changes in mod time on crontab files. Yet the crontab(1) manpage quickly points out these files are not intended to be edited directly. The exact implementation on Solaris may be different so while direct editing might work (bad idea because crontab(1) and cron(8) say so) on FreeBSD apparently it doesn't on Solaris. Its not a terribly bad idea to keep a copy of your crontab file generated with "crontab -l". This also makes it easier to move between machines. FreeBSD's cron keeps a crontab for root in /etc/. This crontab has a slightly different format than the one users are allowed to use. Also *this* file is to be edited directly, which may be how bad habits were formed? -- David Kelly N4HHE, dkelly@hiwaay.net ===================================================================== The human mind ordinarily operates at only ten percent of its capacity -- the rest is overhead for the operating system. To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message
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