Crontab not accepting changes

[Idris Lirio]

I have a problem with linux 7.3 crontab -e not writting the changes to the crontab file. Once crontab is opened for root it generates a file in the /tmp directory which is updated when I make changes and :w!, but after I exit with any other option wq, w, etc the tmp file disappears and the changes are not written to cron. There is also a message saying crontab: no changes made to crontab. any help with this is greatly appreciated.

[Fredrik.eriksson]

There could be a permission error?
I'm not sure where the "crontab -e" file is supposed to be stored.
But you could just aswell use /etc/crontab or a local crontab file which you can execute by running:
# crontab /path/to/local/crontab.file

Hope this helps you :)
Best regards
Fredrik Eriksson

[Ivan Ferreira]

Try removing and reinstalling your cron:

crontab -l > cron.root
crontab -r
crontab cron.root

Then try to edit again. This is to ensure that permissions for the cron file are correct.

Also, ensure that the crontab command has the SUID and SGID bit enabled:

# ls -la $(which crontab)
-rwsr-sr-x 1 root root 311288 mar 14 2007 /usr/bin/crontab

[Idris Lirio]

Ivan

I just tried this and still have the smae issue.

/var/spool/cron/root
-rw------- 1 root root 3.2k Nov 13 12:17 root

-rwsr-xr-x 1 root root 21080 Apr 14 2002 /usr/bin/crontab

The funny thing is I can edit the /var/spool file and crontab -e shows the changes, but a straight edit using crontab -e does not even when :w! is used and states cron was updated, but I suspect the update only refers to the /tmp file and not the actual cron file which is never updated on exit

[Ivan Ferreira]

Sometimes, when you have a syntax error in your cron file, for example, a missing value, the changes are not saved.

¿Can you upload a txt file with all your procedure?

[skt_skt]

check if your / fs is RW mode; You may not have /tmp as seprate file system now. give a try..

[Idris Lirio]

The file contains the entire crontab for root

[Johnson Punniyalingam]

#----------------------
# Monitor load avg on noble boxes
#----------------------
*/5 * * * * /root/monitor/loadavg.pl
#----------------------

above entry in your crontab looks to me wrong.


A crontab file has five fields for specifying day , date and time followed by the command to be run at that interval.

* * * * * command to be executed
- - - - -
| | | | |
| | | | +----- day of week (0 - 6) (Sunday=0)
| | | +------- month (1 - 12)
| | +--------- day of month (1 - 31)
| +----------- hour (0 - 23)
+------------- min (0 - 59)


Thanks,
Johnson

[Dennis Handly]

>Johnson: */5 * * * * /root/monitor/loadavg.pl
>above entry in your crontab looks to me wrong.

You might want to explain what you think is wrong? That "*/5" syntax seems to be linux for every 5 minutes. (Not valid for HP-UX though.)

[Idris Lirio]

I agree the */5 is a valid entry and we use it on our other 7.3 boxes which happen to be red hat. Sorry for not mentioing that earlier