[Wolves] Baffled by cron (eedjit alert)

[David Goodwin]

Paul Harrison wrote:
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> 
> I'm running Ubuntu Hoary.  I can't get my head round cron at all - it
> doesn't appear to be working.
> 
> I looked at this:
> 
> http://www.unixgeeks.org/security/newbie/unix/cron-1.html
> 
> for an intro to cron.  I try:
> 
> bogl at bogubu:~$ ps aux | grep crond
> bogl       699  0.0  0.0   3032   724 pts/0    S+   17:15   0:00 grep
> crond
> 
> ...and that's all I get.  So then I try:
> 
> bogl at bogubu:~$ sudo crond
> Password:
> sudo: crond: command not found
> 
> Any cron jobs I try setting up using kcron do nothing.
> 
> I have googled and tried to R T fine M, but can't see what is up.
> 
> What am I doing wrong?


When you did "sudo crond" it couldn't find crond in your $PATH.

Your actual problem is that cron runs as the process name "cron", not 
"crond" (on Debian/Ubuntu at least)

If you used "crontab -e"  I believe it validates the cron file before 
putting it into use. Output from a cron will be emailed to the user.


thanks
David.


-- 
David Goodwin

[ david at codepoets dot co dot uk ]
[ http://www.codepoets.co.uk       ]