a question about cron

[hcclnoodles]

I have a script which goes out and installs a package on a box remotely and im trying to get it to add a cron job too..but im having a few problems, whilst it does add the entry it wont run unless I connect to the machine , crontab -e, then :wq. This re-reads the configuration file and it will now run. so i tried in my script the following methods

1) I tried to edit the cron file for root directly

ssh $mybox 'echo "0 22 * * 5 /opt/SUNWexplo/bin/explorer -q -e" >> /var/spool/cron/crontabs/root'

But i realised that the process would need to be HUP'ed to re-read this conf file so i tried adding

pkill -HUP cron

I come in the next morning and I check /var/cron/log] and nothing has run. However, as i said, if i crontab -e and then save it immediately wq) then it will work fine



2) Ok, as far as im aware the above should have worked but I thought id try another method, this according to my colleague would definately work. Output crontab -l to a temp file , append the line to the temp file and use crontab <filename>. to re-read it in...

ssh $mybox 'crontab -l > /tmp/cron1'
ssh $mybox 'echo "0 22 * * 5 /opt/SUNWexplo/bin/explorer -q -e" >> /tmp/cron1'
ssh $mybox 'crontab /tmp/cron1'

Same thing, come in next morning nothings happened, log onto box crontab -e, then immediately same it wq) and all is working ..

Does anybody have any idea on how i can get this to work

cheers

 

[KenCunningham]

Can I just clarify : the crontab is being updated, but then doesn't appear to work? I must admit I would expect the second appraoch to work.

I don't mind people who aren't what they seem. I just wish they'd make their mind up.

 

[hcclnoodles]

yep the crontab has the line appended, and if i do a crontab -l I can see it, but i assume crontab -l just reads /var/spool/cron/crontabs/root and not what the running cron process has read into memory ?

I was just thinking, do i need to issue a carriage return after my command

 

[Annihilannic]

The method your colleague suggested seemed to work for me on Solaris 8.

Annihilannic.

 

[KenCunningham]

Me too.

I don't mind people who aren't what they seem. I just wish they'd make their mind up.