More than a week after upgrading from Mandrake 10.1 to Mandriva 2009 I'm still trying to iron out problems. One is running logcheck. In 10.1 I had this in my crontab:

0 * * * * root /usr/local/etc/logcheck.sh

which ran logcheck every hour. Now in 2009 I can't get it to run. It's the same version as I had before using the same config files. Using this command from the cli:

su -s /bin/bash -c "/usr/sbin/logcheck -d -t" logcheck

logcheck will run but gives me these errors:

logoutput called with file: /var/log/syslog
Running logtail: /var/log/syslog
error: Killing lockfile-touch - 20489
error: Removing lockfile: /var/lock/logcheck.lock
Error: Could not run logtail or save output
Cleanup: Removing - /var/tmp/logcheck.rHWifN

The output mailed to me is:

Warning: If you are seeing this message, your log files may not have been
checked!

Details:
Could not run logtail or save output

Check temporary directory: /var/tmp/logcheck.lapCCo

declare -x DISPLAY=":0.0"
declare -x ENV="/root/.bashrc"
declare -x GCONF_TMPDIR="/tmp"
declare -x G_FILENAME_ENCODING="@locale"
declare -x HISTCONTROL="ignoredups"
declare -x HISTSIZE="1000"
declare -x HOME="/etc/logcheck"
declare -x HOSTNAME="localhost"
declare -x INPUTRC="/etc/inputrc"
declare -x LANG="en_US.UTF-8"
declare -x LANGUAGE="en_US.UTF-8:en_US:en"
declare -x LC_ADDRESS="en_US.UTF-8"
declare -x LC_COLLATE="en_US.UTF-8"
declare -x LC_CTYPE="en_US.UTF-8"
declare -x LC_IDENTIFICATION="en_US.UTF-8"
declare -x LC_MEASUREMENT="en_US.UTF-8"
declare -x LC_MESSAGES="en_US.UTF-8"
declare -x LC_MONETARY="en_US.UTF-8"
declare -x LC_NAME="en_US.UTF-8"
declare -x LC_NUMERIC="en_US.UTF-8"
declare -x LC_PAPER="en_US.UTF-8"
declare -x LC_SOURCED="1"
declare -x LC_TELEPHONE="en_US.UTF-8"
declare -x LC_TIME="en_US.UTF-8"
declare -x LESS="-MM"
declare -x LESSCHARSET="utf-8"
declare -x LESSKEY="/etc/.less"
declare -x LESSOPEN="|/usr/bin/lesspipe.sh %s"
declare -x LOGNAME="logcheck"
declare -x LS_COLORS="rs=0:di=01;34:ln=01;36i=40;33:so=01;35:do=01;35:bd=40;33;01:cd=40;33;01r=01;05;37;41: mi=01;05;37;41:su=37;41:sg=30;43:tw=30;42w=34;42:st=37;44:ex=01;32:*.cmd=01;32:*.exe=01;32:*.com=0 1;32:*.btm=01;32:*.bat=01;32:*.sh=01;32:*.csh=01;32:*.tar=01;31:*.tgz=01;31:*.arj=01;31:*.taz=01;31: *.lzh=01;31:*.lzma=01;31:*.zip=01;31:*.z=01;31:*.Z=01;31:*.dz=01;31:*.gz=01;31:*.bz2=01;31:*.bz=01;3 1:*.tbz2=01;31:*.tz=01;31:*.lzma=01;31:*.tlz=01;31:*.deb=01;31:*.rpm=01;31:*.cpio=01;31:*.jar=01;31: *.rar=01;31:*.ace=01;31:*.zoo=01;31:*.cpio=01;31:*.7z=01;31:*.rz=01;31:*.iso=01;31:*.jpg=01;35:*.jpe g=01;35:*.JPG=01;35:*.JPEG=01;35:*.gif=01;35:*.bmp=01;35:*.pbm=01;35:*.pgm=01;35:*.ppm=01;35:*.tga=0 1;35:*.xbm=01;35:*.xpm=01;35:*.tif=01;35:*.tiff=01;35:*.png=01;35:*.svg=01;35:*.svgz=01;35:*.mng=01; 35:*.pcx=01;35:*.mov=01;35:*.mpg=01;35:*.mpeg=01;35:*.m2v=01;35:*.mkv=01;35:*.ogm=01;35:*.mp4=01;35: *.m4v=01;35:*.mp4v=01;35:*.vob=01;35:*.qt=01;35:*.nuv=01;35:*.wmv=01;35:*.asf=01;35:*.rm=01;35:*.rmv b=01;35:*.flc=01;35:*.avi=01;35:*.fli=01;35:*.flv=01;35:*.gl=01;35:*.dl=01;35:*.xcf=01;35:*.xwd=01;3 5:*.yuv=01;35:*.divx=01;35:*.xvid=01;35:*.asf=01;35:*.wmv=01;35:*.mp4=01;35:*.3gp=01;35:*.flv=01;35: *.ico=01;35:*.aac=00;36:*.au=00;36:*.flac=00;36:*.mid=00;36:*.midi=00;36:*.mka=00;36:*.mp3=00;36:*.m pc=00;36:*.ogg=00;36:*.ra=00;36:*.wav=00;36:*.mp2=00;36:*.mod=00;36:*.xm=00;36:*.s3m=00;36:*.it=00;3 6:*.wma=00;36:*~=47;30:*.bak=47;30:*.swp=47;30:*.bck=47;30:*.bk=47;30:*.old=47;30:*.tmp=47;30:*.save =47;30:*.rpmsave=47;30:*.rpmnew=47;30:"
declare -x MAIL="/var/spool/mail/root"
declare -x MDV_MENU_STYLE="mandriva"
declare -x META_CLASS="download"
declare -x MPIRUN_HOME="/usr/bin"
declare -x NLSPATH="/usr/share/locale/%l/%N"
declare -x OLDPWD
declare -x PATH="/sbin:/usr/sbin:/bin:/usr/bin:/usr/X11R6/bin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/local/sbin"
declare -x PWD="/root"
declare -x PYTHONPATH="/usr/lib/ooo-3.0/basis-link/program"
declare -x PYTHONSTARTUP="/etc/pythonrc.py"
declare -x QT4DOCDIR="/usr/share/doc/qt4/doc"
declare -x QTDIR="/usr/lib/qt3/"
declare -x QTINC=""
declare -x QTLIB=""
declare -x SCREENDIR="/root/tmp"
declare -x SECURE_LEVEL="3"
declare -x SHELL="/bin/bash"
declare -x SHLVL="3"
declare -x TERM="xterm"
declare -x TMP="/root/tmp"
declare -x TMPDIR="/var/tmp/logcheck.lapCCo"
declare -x USER="logcheck"
declare -x USERNAME="root"
declare -x XAUTHORITY="/etc/logcheck/.xauthLiJyUb"
declare -x XDG_DATA_DIRS="/usr/share:/opt/kde3/share"

I've made a user 'logcheck' in group 'logcheck' as I've seen suggested elsewhere. The above output is when run from the command line. When run from a cronjob this is all I see:

standard in must be a tty

I can't figure out why it ran so easily in 10.1 but won't in 2009.
Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Chris

Logcheck must have privileges adequate to read /var/log/syslog. As far as I know this means 'root' privileges. I believe the logcheck group should be a 'system' group, and tre user should be a system user, versus a real user, with a username and password. System accounts grab root privileges as needed, usually.

The permissions are not adequate for creating the lockfile, and so, although the syslog tail starts, it never completes. This could be due to the permissions on the lockfile directory itself. I do have to say, logcheck is a bummer of a program. To try and keep up with it, if certain other packages are installed, is a nightmare.

But, if logcheck is what you want, check out what I advised. It could also be a bug in the distro, in which case it should be reported to the Mandriva team. Reporting bugs is frequently the fastest fix.

Thanks Awsome, I'll look into this tomorrow. I may just give up on it and try logwatch instead. I did like the hourly syslog snip I got from logcheck. I'm not exactly though what you mean by 'system group' and 'system user'. It seems much harder to get this 2009 install up an running again as opposed to the 10.1 I'd been using before.

Thanks for the reply
Chris