Why are cron.hourly files not running?

[Larry Alkoff]

Larry Alkoff wrote:
> Derek Broughton wrote:
>> Larry Alkoff wrote:
>>
>>> What are these entries in /etc/syslog trying to tell me?
>>> Could the printcap entries have something to do with simply writing an
>>> echo statement to a file?
>>>
>>> Jul 16 14:20:01 kinda smbd[12172]: [2007/07/16 14:20:01, 0]
>>> printing/pcap.c:pcap_cache_reload(159)
>>> Jul 16 14:20:01 kinda smbd[12172]:   Unable to open printcap file
>>> /etc/printcap for read!
>>> Jul 16 14:20:01 kinda smbd[12172]: [2007/07/16 14:20:01, 0]
>>> printing/pcap.c:pcap_cache_reload(159)
>>> Jul 16 14:20:01 kinda smbd[12172]:   Unable to open printcap file
>>> /etc/printcap for read!
>>> Jul 16 14:20:01 kinda /USR/SBIN/CRON[7528]: (root) CMD (   cd / &&
>>> run-parts --report /etc/cron.hourly)
>>
>> Why would you even think that?  You have messages from two processes - one
>> (#12172) says it's smbd (the samba daemon), the other (7529) says it's
>> CRON.  So you might have a samba problem, but it isn't related to
>> cron.hourly.
>>
>> Since you don't seem to be getting any results from cron.hourly, why don't
>> you start by running the command shown exactly:
>>
>> # sudo su
>> # cd / && run-parts --report /etc/cron.hourly
>>
>> and see what it does.
>>
>> btw, I'm not even sure you can write directly to syslog.  Try
>> using "logger".
> 
> 
> Using your two commands.
> sudo su of course changed to a root user.
> The second line changed to the / directory but did nothing else AFAICS.
> 
> Before the command was issued the only thing I saw in /var/log/syslog 
> were entries of:
> Jul 16 15:37:39 kinda smbd[12172]:   Unable to open printcap file 
> /etc/printcap for read!
> Jul 16 15:50:36 kinda smbd[12172]: [2007/07/16 15:50:36, 0] 
> printing/pcap.c:pcap_cache_reload(159)
> Jul 16 15:50:36 kinda smbd[12172]:   Unable to open printcap file 
> /etc/printcap for read!
> Jul 16 15:50:36 kinda smbd[12172]: [2007/07/16 15:50:36, 0] 
> printing/pcap.c:pcap_cache_reload(159)
> Jul 16 15:50:36 kinda smbd[12172]:   Unable to open printcap file 
> /etc/printcap for read!
> Jul 16 16:03:32 kinda smbd[12172]: [2007/07/16 16:03:32, 0] 
> printing/pcap.c:pcap_cache_reload(159)
> Jul 16 16:03:32 kinda smbd[12172]:   Unable to open printcap file 
> /etc/printcap for read!
> Jul 16 16:03:32 kinda smbd[12172]: [2007/07/16 16:03:32, 0] 
> printing/pcap.c:pcap_cache_reload(159)
> Jul 16 16:03:32 kinda smbd[12172]:   Unable to open printcap file 
> /etc/printcap for read!
> 
> Whatever printcap has to do with I don't know.
> 
> Finally I tested wether or not is is possible to write directly to 
> syslog with:
> echo This is a test >>/var/log/syslog
> which produced
> this is a test
> so it seems to be quite possible.
> 
> Larry
> 
> 




A postscript:

Tried logger with
logger This is a test
and indeed it wrote to syslog with a nice date/time stamp.
I put it in my little settime.cron script.

However, at the appointed minute of executing run-parts in 
/etc/cron.hourly, the settime.cron script with logger did not run.

/usr/bin/logger is in the path that #!/bin/sh sets up.

Again, I suspect that cron.hourly scripts are treated differently 
because the crontab line does not include anacron like the others.

-- 
Larry Alkoff N2LA - Austin TX
Using Thunderbird on Linux