From owner-freebsd-questions Tue Mar 7 18:38:23 2000 Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mail.HiWAAY.net (fly.HiWAAY.net [208.147.154.56]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 9735B37B60A for ; Tue, 7 Mar 2000 18:38:19 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from dkelly@nospam.hiwaay.net) Received: from nospam.hiwaay.net (tnt8-208-170-118-73.dialup.HiWAAY.net [208.170.118.73]) by mail.HiWAAY.net (8.9.3/8.9.0) with ESMTP id UAA23265; Tue, 7 Mar 2000 20:38:16 -0600 (CST) Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by nospam.hiwaay.net (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id TAA08106; Tue, 7 Mar 2000 19:01:59 -0600 (CST) (envelope-from dkelly@nospam.hiwaay.net) Message-Id: <200003080101.TAA08106@nospam.hiwaay.net> X-Mailer: exmh version 2.1.1 10/15/1999 To: Matthew West Cc: mark , freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG From: David Kelly Subject: Re: Crontabs In-reply-to: Message from Matthew West of "Tue, 07 Mar 2000 17:37:10 +0200." <20000307173710.A21007@apotheosis.org.za> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Date: Tue, 07 Mar 2000 19:01:59 -0600 Sender: owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG 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