How To Enable Cron?

[grog]

I've installed the vixie cron package off the OZ 3.5.2 feeds, but it doens't seem to work. I know a bit about rc runtimes & /etc/init.d to see that it's not enabled there, so what do I have to do? Even if I run the cron daemon (/usr/sbin/cron) without errors, my crontab still isn't run. What time zone is cron in? My own (CST)  or UTC?

thanks in advance

[CoreDump]

Are you saying that cron ships w/o an init-script?
Sounds like a bug to me, I'll have a look later today.

[grog]

Are you saying that cron ships w/o an init-script?
Sounds like a bug to me, I'll have a look later today.
[div align=\"right\"][a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=62695\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a][/div]

just firgured I'd revisit this to see if you'd gotten around to fixing it. I removed the package & reinstalled, same. Any chance you could take some time to add those init scripts? thks

[grog]

So I dropped this for a bit but now I'm back . I re-installed cron under 3.5.3 & (I think) figured out the linux boot process. I manually created this script:

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root@grond[/etc/init.d]# cat cron
#! /bin/sh

DESC=cron

case "$1" in
  start)
        echo -n "Starting $DESC: "
                cron
        echo "$NAME."
       ;;
  stop)
        echo -n "Stopping $DESC: "
                killall cron > /dev/null 2>&1
        echo "$NAME."
       ;;
  restart|force-reload)
        echo -n "Restarting $DESC: "
                killall cron > /dev/null 2>&1
        sleep 1
                cron
        echo "$NAME."
       ;;
  *)
        N=/etc/init.d/$NAME
        echo "Usage: $N {start|stop|restart|force-reload}" >&2
        exit 1
       ;;
esacand created a symlink:

Code: [Select]

root@grond[/etc/rc2.d]# ll S20cron
lrwxrwxrwx    1 root     root           14 Apr 26 14:15 S20cron -> ../init.d/cronWhy S20? Cause it looked cool. No clue, so comments welcome. But now cron starts up all by itself & actually works. COOL!

!!!BUT!!!! (there's always at least one of those, right?) A reboot erases the crontab file (/var/cron/tabs). Does /var/ get cleaned out on reboot in OZ? What can I do to finally get cron working? thks

[JohnKiniston]

You could have a script that copies your crontab back to /var before cron starts and do your editing of your crontab in a different location.

[grog]

You could have a script that copies your crontab back to /var before cron starts and do your editing of your crontab in a different location.[div align=\"right\"][a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=77276\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a][/div]

mmm. cool idea. I could replace the crontab command with a script that runs crontab.bin (the original), then after that exits then copy the tab file to the backup location, and have the init.d script restore that file to /var on startup. I'll post the stuff when I'm done.

I'd still like to know definitively the answer to the question about /var cleaning itself out. Doesn't anybody else here use cron (successfully)? thks

[hvontres]

You could have a script that copies your crontab back to /var before cron starts and do your editing of your crontab in a different location.[div align=\"right\"][a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=77276\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a][/div]

mmm. cool idea. I could replace the crontab command with a script that runs crontab.bin (the original), then after that exits then copy the tab file to the backup location, and have the init.d script restore that file to /var on startup. I'll post the stuff when I'm done.

I'd still like to know definitively the answer to the question about /var cleaning itself out. Doesn't anybody else here use cron (successfully)? thks
[div align=\"right\"][a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=77290\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a][/div]

I was able to get it to work by moving  my working /var/cron directory to /home/cron. I then added the following line to the end of /etc/init.d/populate-var.sh:

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ln -s /home/cron /var/cron

I hope this helps.

[grog]

I was able to get it to work by moving  my working /var/cron directory to /home/cron. I then added the following line to the end of /etc/init.d/populate-var.sh:

Code: [Select]

ln -s /home/cron /var/cron [div align=\"right\"][a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=81089\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a][/div]

Works like a charm. Thanks muchly for the tip. a lot simpler than what I had planned :?

On a side note. Is there anyway to have a script that is running via cron to display opie-sh popups? I'm able to set the DISPLAY variable in my crontab & I know the script is picking that up, and I can see the ope-sh command being run in the /var/cron/log, but nothing on the screen.

thanks again