Date: Thu, 3 Sep 2009 10:42:28 -0400 From: stan <stanb@panix.com> To: Mel Flynn <mel.flynn+fbsd.questions@mailing.thruhere.net> Cc: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: What invokes cricket on FreeBSD Message-ID: <20090903144228.GA5919@teddy.fas.com> In-Reply-To: <200909031622.43318.mel.flynn%2Bfbsd.questions@mailing.thruhere.net> References: <20090903114857.GA635@teddy.fas.com> <20090903133335.GA3884@teddy.fas.com> <20090903134107.GA3930@teddy.fas.com> <200909031622.43318.mel.flynn%2Bfbsd.questions@mailing.thruhere.net>
next in thread | previous in thread | raw e-mail | index | archive | help
On Thu, Sep 03, 2009 at 04:22:43PM +0200, Mel Flynn wrote: > On Thursday 03 September 2009 15:41:07 stan wrote: > > On Thu, Sep 03, 2009 at 09:33:35AM -0400, stan wrote: > > > On Thu, Sep 03, 2009 at 09:22:56AM -0400, stan wrote: > > > > On Thu, Sep 03, 2009 at 01:43:15PM +0100, Matthew Seaman wrote: > > > > > stan wrote: > > > > > > On Thu, Sep 03, 2009 at 07:48:57AM -0400, stan wrote: > > > > > >> I have inherited a system that uses Cricket on FreeBSD to do some > > > > > >> data collection. I have set this up myself in the distnat past, > > > > > >> but this time I asked a contractor to set it up. I no longer have > > > > > >> access to this contractor, and the toher day, we shut down the > > > > > >> system this was running on, and when we rebooted the system, > > > > > >> cricket id not resume collecting data. > > > > > >> > > > > > >> I don't see anyhting in /usr/local/etc/rc.d to start it up, nor do > > > > > >> I see anything in /etc/crontag. I don't seen any processes owned > > > > > >> by cricket running. > > > > > >> > > > > > >> In FreeBSD, how is this process noramally invoked? > > > > > > > > > > > > Sorry to reply to my own message, but I have more data. I did find > > > > > > > > > > > > -rw------- 1 root wheel 288 Jan 12 2009 /var/cron/tabs/cricke > > > > > > > > > > > > Which is, I am failry certain, what is _intended_ to invoke the > > > > > > cricket process. However, acording to the cricket logs, the last > > > > > > time I have an entry is Aug 29th, which was when the machine was > > > > > > shut down. So, I decided to try running this command by hand. Now, > > > > > > to do so I need to be the cricket user, so I tried to su - cricket. > > > > > > I was told that this user was not avaialble. Looking in > > > > > > /etc/passwd. I found that this users shell was listed as > > > > > > /usr/sbin/nologin. I edited /etc/paswd to change this to /nin/sh, > > > > > > but I still get the smae error message when I try to su to that > > > > > > user. > > > > > > > > > > > > What do I need to change to be able to su to this suer, and might > > > > > > this be the reason tha it's crontab entry is notbeing run? > > > > > > > > > > Try: > > > > > > > > > > # su -m cricket > > > > > > > > > > although the best way to examine and/or modify that user's crontab > > > > > is: > > > > > > > > > > # crontab -e -u cricket > > > > > > > > OK, I was able to execute the cricket collector caoomand bu using the > > > > su - format, and it ran corectly. > > > > > > > > Cany anyone sugest what to check to see why cron is not executing this > > > > command? I see no evidence of it's running in either the cricket logs' > > > > or cron's logs. > > > > > > > > Thanks. > > > > > > Repkying to my own message again :-( > > > > > > > > > OK, I found in the cron man page the following: > > > > > > Before running a command from a per-account crontab file, cron > > > checks the status of the account with pam(3) and skips the command if > > > the account is unavailable, e.g., locked out or expired. > > > > > > So, now the question is, how do I unlock that user? > > > > This gets strnager. I found the pw cammand, which should do thatm but: > > > > pnoc# pw unlock cricket > > pw: user 'cricket' is not locked > > > > So, how come: > > > > pnoc# su - cricket > > This account is currently not available. > > Cause cricket doesn't have a valid home directory. However, you can simply > copy the /var/cron/tabs/cricket to /tmp. Remove the time colums, then run: > su -m cricket /usr/bin/env -i HOME=/nonexistent PATH=/bin:/usr/bin \ > /bin/sh /tmp/cricket > > That's the best approximation of how cron runs the commands. If you don't see > anything in the cron logs however, it may be an issue with the timestamps > specified not yielding any runs. Then it would help to see the actual crontab > file. Hmm, but I think it does : pnoc# grep cricket /etc/passwd cricket:*:141:80:Cricket Monitoring User:/usr/local/cricket:/usr/sbin/nologin and pnoc# ls -ld /usr/local/cricket drwxr-xr-x 7 cricket www 512 Apr 8 16:41 /usr/local/cricket As far as cron logs, I am _now_ gettting an entry that looks like cron is executing the collector: Sep 3 10:40:00 pnoc /usr/sbin/cron[80979]: (cricket) CMD (/usr/local/cricket/cricket/collect-subtrees normal) But, still not getting anything in cricket's logs: ls: No match. pnoc# ls -l /usr/local/cricket/*logs total 2812 -rw-r--r-- 1 cricket www 74098 Sep 3 09:17 normal.0 The 9:17 time is from a manual run of the collector. I must admit, I am not certain waht to check next. Thanks for the help! -- One of the main causes of the fall of the roman empire was that, lacking zero, they had no way to indicate successful termination of their C programs.
Want to link to this message? Use this URL: <https://mail-archive.FreeBSD.org/cgi/mid.cgi?20090903144228.GA5919>