[Bug 204813] suggeted improvement for crontab(1)'s newly created files

bugzilla-noreply at freebsd.org bugzilla-noreply at freebsd.org
Wed Nov 25 17:53:37 UTC 2015


https://bugs.freebsd.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=204813

            Bug ID: 204813
           Summary: suggeted improvement for crontab(1)'s newly created
                    files
           Product: Base System
           Version: 10.2-RELEASE
          Hardware: Any
                OS: Any
            Status: New
          Severity: Affects Some People
          Priority: ---
         Component: bin
          Assignee: freebsd-bugs at FreeBSD.org
          Reporter: mason at blisses.org

crontab(1) creates new files in /var/cron/tabs. While crontab(5) notes a
default PATH of "/usr/bin:/bin", generating a file for root ended up with the
default PATH not including /sbin or /usr/sbin.

While this is fine and even documented, it occurred to me that it might be
useful for crontab(1) to populate the new file with some explanatory text, and
perhaps a PATH assignment - even if it were commented out - as a reminder to
the user that the PATH has to be explicated in the crontab file.

There's precedent for this elsewhere... Debian populates new files with some
comments. I've not got easy access to other BSDs at the moment to check.

Note: This *is* a user error and it *is* documented, but it would also be an
easy way to prevent us from shooting ourselves in the foot sporadically. It
seems like a "can't hurt, can help, effectively no cost" improvement. There's
precedent for this variety of change - sysrc(8) is an example.

My suggested starter file:

#PATH=/bin:/usr/bin

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