cron job

[zsujith]

Hi All,

I have sheduled a cron job in HP server for system reboot. But it doest run last time.
Could you please help me to find out why it was not run.
Following is the cron entry.

01 14 * * 0 /etc/shutdown -ry 0


Sujith

[Johnson Punniyalingam]

<Following is the cron entry>>

what does you cron log shows..?

/var/adm/cron/log ..?

Thanks,
Johnson

[Suraj K Sankari]

Hi,

You give the wrong path.

>>01 14 * * 0 /etc/shutdown -ry 0

/usr/sbin/shutdown -ry

Suraj

[zsujith]

Hi,
It seems ok..
$ ls -l /etc/shutdown
lrwxr-xr-t 1 root sys 18 Apr 22 2008 /etc/shutdown -> /usr/sbin/shutdown
$ ps -ef |grep -i cron
root 1596 1 0 Nov 9 ? 0:52 /usr/sbin/cron

[Johnson Punniyalingam]

Hi Suraj,

>>You give the wrong path.>>

nothing wrong in the path

see below my crontab "which i am shutdowing the server every -week end"

# crontab -l
15 08 * * * /opt/omni/lbin/check_back.sh
#00,5,10,15,20,25,30,35,40,45,50,55 21-23 * * * /var/adm/crash/perf/test.sh
0 9 * * 1-5 /home/ibmadm1/hc.sh 1>/dev/null 2>/dev/null
# Green IT - Server shutdown every Sunday 2000hrs
0 20 * * 0 /etc/shutdown -hy

# date
Mon Nov 17 12:09:22 SST 2008
# ll /etc/shutdown
lrwxr-xr-t 1 root sys 18 Jun 23 2005 /etc/shutdown -> /usr/sbin/shutdown
#

[Johnson Punniyalingam]

sujith,

did you manged to check on cron logs, what does its says

Thnx
Johnson

[zsujith]

Hi,

I have not found any entries at 14:01 ..

root 18856 c Sun Nov 16 14:00:00 CST 2008
< root 18856 c Sun Nov 16 14:00:00 CST 2008
> root 20394 c Sun Nov 16 14:05:00 CST 2008
< root 20394 c Sun Nov 16 14:05:00 CST 2008

[Johnson Punniyalingam]

more /var/adm/cron/cron.allow --> output

need check double confirm "root" added to cron.allow file
..?

also please check "syslog" for Sun Nov 16 14:00:00 CST 2008..?

Thanks,
Johnson

[zsujith]

$ more /var/adm/cron/cron.allow
root
And There is no entries in syslog for this time

[Johnson Punniyalingam]

do you have cron.deny file ..?

If only the cron.deny exist and is empty,all users can use crontab.file exists only the root user can use the crontab

if you till face some problem

restart the crontab

/sbin/init.d/cron stop

cd /usr/lib/cron
mv FIFO FIFO.old

/sbin/init.d/cron start

Thanks,
Johnson

[zsujith]

Hi Johnson,
The fifo file shows zero bytes.
Can you tell me wt is FIFO file.

prw------- 1 root root 0 Nov 14 21:24 FIFO

[Johnson Punniyalingam]

cron reads a message from the FIFO only when there are no jobs to
execute at the current time. If there are any child processes (jobs)
running, the FIFO read will be delayed.

Thanks,
Johnson

[Sunny Jaisinghani]

Hello All,

is it ok if we update the crontab using vi.

what difference does it make if we use vi and crontab -e to edit the crontab

i had a same situation where the cronjob did not run after i edited the crontab using vi

do i have to restart the cron??

Sunny

[Michał Wachowiak]

Hi,

Sunny -> after you edited cron with vi you should restart cron.

Editing with crontab -e command doesn't require restart.

Regards,
Michal

[Johnson Punniyalingam]

Hi Sunny Jaisinghani ,

>>i had a same situation where the cronjob did not run after i edited the crontab using vi >>

by editing crontab using " crontab -e " will helps to refresh crontabs by itself

(i mean you will getting message at the bottom when wq! some thing like Commands will excuted by root")

vi -> doesn't do that for you ,

hope you understand

Thx
Johnson

[Sunny Jaisinghani]

Thanks Michal and john

[Dennis Handly]

>Johnson: nothing wrong in the path

It is probably better to use the correct path than the tlink. They were planned to be removed for 11.31.

>mv FIFO FIFO.old

I've never needed to do this.

>Sunny: is it ok if we update the crontab using vi?

No, you should never do this directly. As Michal and Johnson said, only use crontab(1).