disabling cron jobs for deleted user

[Olga_1]

User was deleted through SAM, but cron jobs that belonged to the user keep running. How to disable them?

Thank you.

[Patrick Wallek · Accepted solution]

Do the following:

# cd /var/spool/cron/crontabs
# mv userid_of_removed_user userid_of_removed_user.bad
or
# rm userid_of_removed_user
# /sbin/init.d/cron stop
# /sbin/init.d/cron start

[Steven E. Protter]

I would modify Patrick's process, just in case one of the jobs turns out to be necessary for transplantation to another user.

# cd /var/spool/cron/crontabs
# mv userid_of_removed_user userid_of_removed_user.bad
or

# change the next line to mv
# rm userid_of_removed_user
mv userid_of_removed_user /root
# keep a copy in case you need it.

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

regards,

SEP

[A. Clay Stephenson]

Here's probably the quickest method:

1) ps -e | grep cron and note the PID of the cron daemon.

2) cd /var/spool/cron/crontabs

3) rm theuser (or whatever)

4) kill -1 PID (from step 1) -- this will send a SIGHUP to the cron daemon forcing a reread of the crontabs w/o actually stopping the cron daemon.

[Patrick Wallek]

Good point Clay. A 'kill -1' or 'kill -HUP' is probably a better idea than stopping and starting cron.