crontab does not work anymore

D. Michael McIntyre michael.mcintyre at rosegardenmusic.com
Tue Nov 21 02:39:52 UTC 2006


On Monday 20 November 2006 3:57 pm, Thilo Six wrote:

> I think this two are different.
[...]
> but that ist different from /etc/crontab (even as root(via sudo))

Just to clarify this, yes, you're right.  If you run crontab as root or any 
other user, you edit that user's local crontab.  This is completely different 
from editing the system level /etc/crontab.  All you have to do 
for /etc/crontab is edit the file.  cron will pick up the change and react to 
it with no additional intervention.

"Additionally,  cron  checks  each  minute  to  see  if its spool directory’s 
modtime (or the modtime on /etc/crontab) has changed, and if it has, cron 
will then examine the modtime on all crontabs and reload those  which have 
changed."

(man cron)

As far as getting email or not, one thing he can do to check this is set up a 
new crontab to run a script that prints something.  The only cron-related 
mail I get is from my own script, which outputs its status messages to 
stdout.  I assume I would get word if any of the daily jobs failed.  I 
haven't experienced that yet.  Every message in the box so far is from my own 
script.

-- 
D. Michael McIntyre 

Author of Rosegarden Companion http://rosegarden.sourceforge.net/tutorial/
See my new music stand unfolding at http://users.adelphia.net/~silvan/




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