crontab question involving cvsup

[Joshua Tinnin]

On Thursday 26 August 2004 08:28 am, "Kevin D. Kinsey, DaleCo, S.P." 
<kdk at daleco.biz> wrote:
> Joshua Tinnin wrote:
> >On Thursday 26 August 2004 12:42 am, epilogue
> > <epilogue at allstream.net>
> >
> >wrote:
> >>On Thu, 26 Aug 2004 00:07:26 -0700
> >>
> >>Joshua Tinnin <krinklyfig at spymac.com> wrote:
> >>>OK, I have searched the archives, and I can't find that my
> >>> question has been answered previously, but please forgive me if
> >>> that's incorrect.
> >>>
> >>>I'm using (or rather trying to use) cron to update my ports tree
> >>>daily. I've tried several different combinations without success,
> >>>and lately this is what I have in my crontab file:
> >>>
> >>>/usr/local/bin/cvsup -g -L 2
> >>>/home/krinklyfig/supfiles/ports-supfile &&
> >>> /usr/local/bin/portindex && /usr/local/sbin/portsdb -u
> >>>
> >>>It runs as root once a day. What appears to be happening is that
> >>>the cvsup is happening, but portindex is not, and because of the
> >>>latter portsdb -u doesn't either. The reason I know cvsup is
> >>>working is because portindex indicates that the ports tree has
> >>> been updated if I run it manually later, but running portversion
> >>> before manually running portindex will not indicate any changes.
> >>> The cron log doesn't show anything but the commands being
> >>> executed. So, my question is: is this type of command valid, or
> >>> should each command be separate? Or is it not working for some
> >>> other reason?
> >>
> >>man cron gives:
> >>
> >>crontab [-u user] file
> >>
> >>'file' being the important part, methinks.   ;)
> >
> >I'm not sure what you mean ... If you're wondering, I'm using the
> > main crontab file (/etc/crontab), as right now there's no need for
> > me to use multiple ones.
>
> Just an aside, but a rather important one:  /etc/crontab is the
> *system* crontab and shouldn't have your jobs in it.  It may in fact
> be this issue that is causing the problem, but I've not looked into
> it enough to say unequivocally...

I don't think this is true. For one thing, as suggested, directing 
output of cvsup to /dev/null worked, and now my cron job is working. 
Another is that neither the handbook nor the /etc/crontab file itself 
warn about editing it. In fact, the handbook section 11.6 says, 
"Important: You must not use the procedure described here to 
edit/install the system crontab. Simply use your favorite editor: the 
cron utility will notice that the file has changed and immediately 
begin using the updated version." This is what I did. I didn't use the 
crontab command to edit/install it, I just used an editor.

> Since your job needs root privileges, you should put this in root's
> crontab, either by su'ing to root and running "crontab -e" at the
> prompt, or if you have sudo installed, "sudo crontab -e" will get you
> there.
>
> Unlike the system crontab, user crontabs, including root's, are
> under /var/cron; the file format is slightly different, and misuse
> of the system crontab for regular jobs is the cause of several
> FAQ posts we see here every few months or so; one of these goes
> something like, "why do I get an email from cron saying it can't
> complete my job, unknown user, etc. ??"....

Again, I see nothing in the documentation warning against editing the 
system crontab file, only that it can't be installed/edited with the 
crontab command.

- jt