[SOLVED] cron.d is ignoring my script

chaying · 11-24-2010, 09:19 PM

Hi

I got this test script :

Code:

# /etc/cron.d/private: personal admin crontab entries

SHELL=/bin/bash
PATH=/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/sbin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin

/1 * * * * root echo 'Succeeded !' | mailx -s "Saving list of installed packages" "admin@localhost"

And cron.d just ignoring it. Does anyone know why ?

rights :
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 254 24 nov. 20:08 /etc/cron.d/private

Thanks

chrism01 · 11-24-2010, 10:06 PM

I sincerely doubt cron is ignoring it. More likely it's having a problem. As a rule cron will email any issue to root. Try

mailx

from the cmd line as root. Incidentally, that should run every minute, which would be a lot(!) of emails. Definite danger of filling the disk. Not to mention the overhead on the system of creating a new process env every minute.

chaying · 11-25-2010, 12:32 AM

Hi thanks to answer

Actually : "no mail for root" is the answer to the cmd.

What you re saying is that cron refuses to treat the "script" because of the danger to fill the disk ?

Anyway it was just a test, for not to wait the answer..

tommyttt · 11-25-2010, 01:01 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by chaying

Hi thanks to answer

Actually : "no mail for root" is the answer to the cmd.

What you re saying is that cron refuses to treat the "script" because of the danger to fill the disk ?

No, that is not what he said. You need to research cron/crontab to get the correct syntax. You have it running that script every minute, therefore 60 times per hour which can quickly fill a disk.

What are you trying to accomplish with this script? It appears that all you're doing is sending a "subject" (-s) but not a list of installed programs. Further, you're sending it to "admin@localhost". That is not a valid address unless you have created a separate user account for "admin". The administrative account in linux is called "root" with an address of "root@localhost".

Tom

colucix · 11-25-2010, 02:55 AM

Code:

/1 * * * * root echo 'Succeeded !'

I don't know if this is a typo, but the time specification is not valid. /1 alone is not allowed, whereas */1 is. Also note that specifying an interval of 1 minute is the same as leaving the asterisk alone. Furthermore, have you checked the system logs? Maybe there is some message from the cron daemon reporting the incorrect syntax of the crontab.

repo · 11-25-2010, 04:34 AM

As tommyttt said, does the user admin exist on your system?
You should use admin, not admin@localhost
Try to run the command from the commandprompt, and see what happens.
Take a look in maillog for any errormessages.

Kind regards

chaying · 11-25-2010, 11:18 PM

Thank you to all for showing interest.

And especially to colucix : you were right, I kind of miss that in the doc.

Mea culpa !