General :: Use Crontab -e To Set It Up Under The Root Account?
Jul 16, 2010
I have set up my crontab and whilst Im logged in and it works (It runs my shell script), however when Im not logged in, the script does not run. Initially I set the time/date to 0 0 * * * (Midnight every day), as this did not work, I tested it with to 0 * * * * (every hour) whilst logged in and the script starts.
I use crontab -e to set it up under the root account..Im sure you dont have to be logged in for it to run?, but maybe im missing a step or just overdosing on Linux and need a holiday:-)
I am using Linux 64 bit Redhat Linux. I am trying to setup simple crontab as follow...1. Edited crontab file using crontab -e2. Listed the file once to verify it using crontab -l. This will display as.. 18 5 * * 2-3 ksh $HOME/testScript.sh > $HOME/testscript.out3. Logged in a root and restarted cron deamon using "/etc/init.d/crond restart"As per my understanding now my testScript should start running at 5:18 am Thuesday
I have a question about using crontab with /etc/crontab...
I had a cron job that I needed to run as root. At the time I thought that sticking it in /etc/crontab would be a good idea. However, I used the crontab command to edit /etc/crontab, which I guess is not standard procedure? Specifically, I configured /etc/crontab as my local user's crontab (i.e. sudo crontab /etc/crontab) then added my cron job as I would a local user crontab (i.e. sudo crontab -e).
Originally, my cron job looked like this:
30 * * * * root /my/batch/script &> /dev/null
After adding the new cron job I started seeing errors. Something to the effect of "can't find command root" or something similar. So I removed the 'root' user definition from the cron job and the job started running fine. However, because this is /etc/crontab, there are other system related cron jobs that have been defined to run under the root account (e.g. "17 * * * * root cd / && run-parts --report /etc/cron.hourly" runs as root, etc.). So these pre-existing system cron jobs, which up until now have been running smoothly, are now generating "can't find command root" errors. But I think that the system cron jobs _are_ successfully being run someplace because logrotate seems to be working.
So what I _think_ is happening is that /etc/crontab is being run twice: once as the system crontab, and once as my sudoed local user's crontab. When I run crontab -l I see nothing, but when I run sudo crontab -l I can see the contents of /etc/crontab. I am reluctant to delete my sudoed local user's crontab, because then in the process I would be deleting the system crontab, and I do not know how I should restore the system crontab's contents. (I am still not sure as to the most appropriate way to edit the system crontab).
How can I get out of this mess? I want /etc/crontab to go back to the way it was before--running _once_ as the system crontab. As for my new cron job, I'm willing to reconfigure it anywhere so long as I am still able to run it as root. Any ideas? (I am using Ubuntu 8.04 Server LTE)
I am trying to log into a server with a particular account. Let's say I don't know the password for that account. Can I do this using ssh? I am wondering if it is possible to do it in one command, instead of logging in as root and running su.
I deleted the root line in passwd and shadow and then tried to copy the backup and was able to put it all back to normal from rescue mode. However when i get to my login screen i can not login as root anymore or even after logged in as another user i can not su - or su root, it tells me that root user does not exist......
I want to add a new user. For that purposeI switch to su and give root passwd. There I gave a command " useradd ". [smith@localhost smith]#adduser when i press enter key by typing adduser command it say me "Command not found" .Then i log off from my own account and login again from root account. The command "useradd" is then accepted.is there any way that without logging off from normal user account I may enter my roor accout and work as a root account instead to log off from normal user account.
is it possible disabling a crontab job without deleting the crontab description entry (by crontab -e)?I could also accept to change the entry itself. Now it's:0 0 * * 0-6 /home/me/cron/script.csh
What is the user account number when you create a root user account for the system during the installation of any linux distribution? I'm not sure if its 0, 1, 10, or 100..
I am a user of a cluster. I don't want root to see/copy files from my user account(obviously). Is that possible to limit the access of root to users account?
In the ubuntu series I find my hard disk description as this: /dev/sda. As we know in slackware (10.1) for partitioning we either use 'fdisk' or 'cfdisk' when I use fdisk, like mentioned: fdisk /dev/sda. It says disk cannot be found.... or something like that. I think I know why?
You see my hard disk has the D: E: F: as extended partitions comprising logical drives and only my C: drive is pure primary. Does this have any connection with my problem? As from my explanation you can find that I'm a total wreck with computers.. but I'm very thrilled to learn linux. The reason why I need slax is that I require a traditional root account.
i am having problems with privileges i have created a new user with my name, but i cant get root privileges on it. i need the same privileges as the root profile.
I've started to get emails that would typically come from [URL] as [URL]. These emails come from services that send out emails (backup programs) directly, or from cronjobs. I've logged in as the non-root account and either sudo su - or su - to root and the restart the service at one point or another. If I login directly as root and bounce the service or cron the emails come across as from root. I don't see anything in my environment variables after I su to indicate what would cause this. I'm not sure where else to look? A pam setting? This seems to have happened between Fedora 10 and 14 (did a bunch of overdue upgrades recently) I've only got Fedora so I don't have anything to compare to. In Fedora 10 I did not have this problem.
This causes Tomcat to be run as myuser, which is expected. However after issuing the reboot command the system starts up and root is now the owner of this process. How can I force the process to be started off as myuser on reboot?
On a Fedora Core box, I have a normal non-privileged user and I also have sole access to the root account. Because I am the only administrator of this box, I frequently su over to root for administrative tasks. The problem is that many of the user configuration I've become accustomed to are only configured on my day-to-day account (.vimrc, .bashrc, .screenrc, etc). Other than giving my day-to-day user account privileges to perform administration tasks, how would I go about sharing configuration between these two accounts?
Or would this sacrifice security in some way? I've been using root only, and am ready to have a seperate account now. It's the dotfiles for GUI apps that I'm concerned about:
Code: -rw------- 1 root root 98 Feb 13 16:23 .Xauthority -rw------- 1 root root 6392 Feb 12 18:13 .bash_history drwx------ 5 root root 4096 Jan 13 17:47 .config drwxr-xr-x 4 root root 4096 Dec 29 21:36 .fvwm drwx------ 4 root root 4096 Nov 7 19:55 .mozilla -rw------- 1 root root 218 Jan 26 10:04 .recently-used.xbel -rw------- 1 root root 98 Feb 13 16:23 .serverauth.17096 drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 Dec 25 12:42 .tuxcmd drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 Feb 12 17:25 .xine
Is there a non-root shell command that can tell me if a user's account is disabled or not? note that there is a fine distinction between LOCKING and DISABLED:
LOCKING is where you prepend ! or * or !! to the password field of the /etc/passwd file. On Linux systems that shadow the passwords, this marker flag may be placed in /etc/shadow instead of /etc/passwd. Password locking can be done (at a shell prompt) via password -l username (as root) to lock the account of username, and the use of the option -u will unlock it.
DISABLING an account is done by setting the expiration time of the user account to some point in the past. This can be done with chage -E 0 username, which sets the expiration date to 0 days after the Unix epoch. Setting it to -1 will disable the use of the expiration date.
The effect of locking to to prevent the login process from using a supplied password to hash correctly against the saved hash (by virtue of the fact that the pre-pended marker character(s) are not valid output character(s) for the hash, thus no possible input can ever be used to generate a hash that would match it). The effect of disabling is to prevent any process from using an account because the expiration date of the account has already passed.For my situation, the use of locking is not sufficient because a user might still be able to login, e.g. using ssh authentication tokens, and processes under that user can still spawn other processes. Thus, we have accounts that are enabled or disabled, not just locked. We already know how to disable and enable the account - it requires root access and the use of chage, as shown above.To repeat my question: is there a shell command which can be run without root privileges which can output the status of this account expiration info for a given user? this is intended for use on a Red Hat Enterprise 5.4 system.The output is being returned to a java process which can then parse the output as needed, or make use of the return code.
I am setting my cron to work. I am in the roo account/ So first I type as vi crontab -e. Then it ask me type "visual" for normal mode and do that then I type the following as below 1 * * * * root usr/local/testClient/runClient.sh>/usr/local/testClient/cron1.log and press esc type wq. Then I restart the cron service /etc/init.d/crond stop and /etc/init.d/crond start. Lastly when I type crontab -l it tells me no crontab for root.
When I setup crontab as a local user (settings shown below), then it can pop-up a xmessage windows * * * * * DISPLAY=:0.0 /usr/bin/xmessage -center "warning message here" but when I switch to root, and setup the same things in crontab, why it cannot pop-up a xmessage windows? Any special limitation for root to use crontab?
I am trying to run rsnapshot from cron via root's crontab file (crontab -e). If I run rsnapshot from the command line with sudo it works perfectly, however, if I run it from cron:
Code: * * * * * /usr/bin/rsnapshot hourly >/tmp/crontab.out 2>/tmp/crontab.err This does not work. The crontab.err file shows:
I have been having trouble setting up a daily backup script with cron. It would basically never worked. Searched the net for answers but didn't find anything. I finally figured it out !! When root crontab is edited the execute flag is removed from #/var/spool/cron/crontabs/root. I change it with #chmod a+x /var/spool/cron/crontabs/root and all is good.
I've just discovered that crontab is creating a new file in the root directory every time it executes a cronjob, and it doesn't erase over the old file so there are thousands of files in the root directory, they have the same name as the script file (appended with a numeral) but are all blank.here is what one of the cronjob's looks like[URL]
I'm trying to use my root account for the ftp. Now, he can connect but when i come in the map "home" its empty (in the ftp) but he can't get the information.
I came to debian from fedora so there I used ( su - ) to become root user. So my question is that in debian, is it same using ( su ) and ( su - ) or here also using ( su - ) is preferred with slash or without slash. What is the correct and secure way in debian with full root status.
One more question relating gedit sources.list
I use as root account : gedit /etc/apt/sources.list (and then enter and sources file in gedit open)
Is this correct method or any other way as when save after changing entries inside it says error.
I try to use FTP to put new files and catalogs on my server and I always run into problems that I have not the right to create catalogs and files in the named catalogs and so on, it is very annoying.Is there a way around this problem or do I have to activate root account to not run into these problems all the time? I have worked with different UNIX-versions and variants for the last 15 years at least and have always had access to root account, why is it so dangerous to have access to root account in ubuntu?
What file needs to be modified so that Pulseaudio starts automatically when in the root account? Currently, it is necessary to start Pulseaudio from the "Run" dialog when in the root account. I recall there was a file that prevents Pulseaudio from being run as root and that particular line had to be deleted in order for it to work.
I prefer to run my computer from the root account. If not, do not preach about the "dangers" of running as root.
