topic Re: CRON in Operating System - HP-UX

CRON

Nobody's Hero — Tue, 13 Nov 2001 18:52:38 GMT

Can someone tell me how to restore the root crontab?

Re: CRON

harry d brown jr — Tue, 13 Nov 2001 18:55:56 GMT

From a backup, or manually recreate it, then issue (as root)

crontab filename

Of course, restart cron

live free or die
harry

Re: CRON

harry d brown jr — Tue, 13 Nov 2001 19:00:07 GMT

From your backup, or another "like" system, restore/copy

/var/spool/cron/ and all of its subdirectories.

live free or die
harry

Re: CRON

Sanjay_6 — Tue, 13 Nov 2001 19:07:05 GMT

Hi Robert,

You can create a new crontab file for root. Or restore it from the backup. The filename is /usr/spool/cron/crontabs/root

Hope this helps.

Regds

Re: CRON

Paula J Frazer-Campbell — Tue, 13 Nov 2001 19:35:28 GMT

Hi

Make a habit of copying the crontab to an other location.

If fact let cron do it for you every night.

Paula

Re: CRON

Eileen Millen — Tue, 13 Nov 2001 19:48:13 GMT

after you get the file back, you should keep it in roots home directory
you can update the file with changes and enter
crontab filename
to submit it as a cronjob.
Eileen

Re: CRON

Michael Tully — Wed, 14 Nov 2001 00:41:31 GMT

Hi,

There are a few ways to avoid this happening where cron files get removed.
Always keep a copy on the system(whether in 'root's home directory or somewhere else)
Never use crontab -e to edit the cron file.
Always use 'crontab -l >/tmp/mycron' , edit the file and submit it 'crontab /tmp/mycron', that way there is always a file on hand.
We use 'rcs' for any changes to crontab, that way we always have a copy and all changes that have been made.

My 2 cents worth

Re: CRON

Hell.Leader — Wed, 14 Nov 2001 02:32:52 GMT

Restore "/usr/spool/cron/crontabs/root" file from your backup.
Then use "#crontab root".

Re: CRON

Frank Slootweg — Wed, 14 Nov 2001 12:54:11 GMT

It has already been *implied* by Harry, Eileen, Michael and Hell.Leader (Did I forget anybody?), but you *must* install the restored crontab with the crontab(1) command!

I.e. you first restore the file from somewhere (probably from the /var/spool/cron/crontabs/root file on your backup media), then *copy* the file somewhere, let's say to /crontab.root and then issue the crontab(1) command:

# crontab /crontab.root

The reason for this is that cron(1M) only reads the 'spool' copy (/var/spool/cron/crontabs/root) when it starts, i.e. normally at system boot. The file is *not* re-read unless crontab(1) tells cron(1M) to do so, so if you do not use crontab(1), cron(1M) may/will never run the jobs listed in the 'spool' copy.