cron/anacron

[Alan McKinnon]

On Thursday 11 May 2006 15:08, Frank McCormick wrote:
> On Wed, 10 May 2006 21:21:29 +0200

>   Only one more question: what are the files in
> /var/spool/cron/crontabs used for ??? Are they the jobs for
> individual users? If so, why does my updatedb never get updated ?
> There is a job in there for me to updatedb and according to the man
> the syntax is correct.

Yes, that's correct. /var/spool/cron/* contains user crontabs. In this 
context, root is considered a user, with their own crontabs for e.g. 
backing up /root/.

Something like updatedb is a system function and is best kept 
in /etc/crontab. make sure you have a line like 

25 6    * * *   root    test -x /usr/sbin/anacron || run-parts 
--report /etc/cron.daily

in /etc/crontab, and /etc/cron.daily/ should contain a script slocate 
which cron runs. Your cron is probably failing as you don't have 
write access to the slocate database.

-- 
If only me, you and dead people understand hex, 
how many people understand hex?

Alan McKinnon
alan at linuxholdings dot co dot za
+27 82, double three seven, one nine three five