crontab question involving cvsup

[Kevin D. Kinsey, DaleCo, S.P.]

Joshua Tinnin wrote:

>On Thursday 26 August 2004 08:28 am, "Kevin D. Kinsey, DaleCo, S.P." 
><kdk at daleco.biz> wrote:
>  
>
>>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
>  
>

Well, you *can* do it that way ... but I wouldn't.  No flub up of mine
when running mergemaster is going to touch /var/cron/tabs/root;
OTOH, if I put my script calls in /etc/crontab ...

My point was that /etc/crontab is there for the machine, and
per-user crontabs are there for the users --- and that includes
root, so why not use it for what it's for?

Of course, one of the nice things about BSD, if you know
how and why, you can do it any way you like, almost...

H.A.N.D.,

KDK