[Solved] Long cronjobs terminate after 2 minutes/Ubuntu 8.10

[Derek Broughton]

Erik Hemdal wrote:

> I discovered that no mail was in fact set up, so I installed the postfix
> and bsd-mailx packages. I configured Postfix for local mail only and
> updated /etc/crontab to send mail to my working user, not root.
> 
> With no other changes, the cronjob now appears to run properly. 
> Apparently there's a dependency on postfix (which I had expected to be
> configured by
> default, I guess).  I'm assuming that configuring the MTA is what did it.

Actually there's a "recommends" for "mail-transport-agent", not a
dependency, which is why it isn't installed by default.  "aptitude show
cron" says:

" Output from the commands is usually mailed to the system administrator (or
to the user in question); you should probably install a mail system as well
so that you can receive these messages."

Back in the dawn of Ubuntu, a decision was made that a typical desktop
system did not need a mail-transport-agent.  I was subscribed to a bug
about this years back, because cron really requires a mail transport. I
suspect the bug got lost along with many others in the migration to
launchpad, because I didn't see it when I checked my bug list this week. 
The word back then was that cron - and any other app that would normally
send mail - was going to be rewritten so that it didn't need an MTA. 
Obviously that never happened...
-- 
derek