topic Re: cron problems - secure system in Operating System - HP-UX

cron problems - secure system

Osiris Guzman — Wed, 13 Dec 2000 16:07:18 GMT

We are running under an HP 9000 - 11.0 system. A month ago we started having problems with some cron jobs starting new cron daemons. When I look at the log, I'm getting a rc = 1, or ts = 9 attached to jobs that hang and these are the same pids that the new daemons are running under. Does anyone knows what the "ts" means? What causes the cron to generate other crons? or point to into the right direction?

THANK YOU

Re: cron problems - secure system

Cheryl Griffin — Wed, 13 Dec 2000 16:22:38 GMT

rc = return code
ts = termination signal

It is why the process died.

Re: cron problems - secure system

Osiris Guzman — Wed, 13 Dec 2000 16:45:57 GMT

Where can I find the list of the terminal signal descriptions ? Why does it start new cron daemons instead of just sending an error message to the user?

Re: cron problems - secure system

James R. Ferguson — Wed, 13 Dec 2000 17:00:33 GMT

Hi:

# kill -l
# man 5 signal

...JRF...

Re: cron problems - secure system

Ed Sampson — Wed, 13 Dec 2000 19:03:44 GMT

Is it your cron process that is restarting, or
your processes that are started by cron? Check for 2 cron processes running, there should only be one process with a parent id of 1.

Re: cron problems - secure system

Osiris Guzman — Wed, 13 Dec 2000 19:14:42 GMT

There is only one cron started by 1, but the others
are started bye the cron process:

root 7227 1 0 Dec 10 ? 0:02 /usr/sbin/cron
root 3739 7227 255 05:55:00 ? 8:07 /usr/sbin/cron
root 11981 7227 255 20:55:00 ? 206:33 /usr/sbin/cron
root 6473 7227 249 06:45:00 ? 1:37 /usr/sbin/cron
root 762 7227 249 04:45:00 ? 19:02 /usr/sbin/cron
root 3640 7227 255 05:50:00 ? 8:41 /usr/sbin/cron
root 12794 7227 249 21:05:00 ? 201:40 /usr/sbin/cron

Re: cron problems - secure system

Ed Sampson — Wed, 13 Dec 2000 19:31:29 GMT

The only way that cron could start another cron, is if it is in the root crontab file.
check your root crontab file for a cron entry.
If you don't find one, check your other crontab files for the "cron" entry.
As root try
grep cron /var/spool/cron/crontabs/*

Hope this helps.

Re: cron problems - secure system

Paula J Frazer-Campbell — Wed, 13 Dec 2000 20:55:08 GMT

Hi

As this is a recent occurance, when did you last reboot the server? if the answer is before the problem started then try stopping and restarting the cron.

First kill all the child cron jobs (NOT the one with an id of 1).
Then:-

/sbin/init.d/cron stop
/sbin/init.d/cron start

Then monitor how the cron behaves.

HTH

Paula