crontab error

[Tom Horsley]

On Wed, 16 Feb 2011 08:33:30 -0500
Robert Moskowitz wrote:

> This is on F12.
> 
> When I edit /etc/crontab (SUed as root, using VI) I see the following in 
> /var/log/cron after I save crontab:
> 
> Feb 16 00:39:02 hda crond[1541]: (*system*) RELOAD (/etc/crontab)
> Feb 16 00:39:02 hda crond[1541]: (CRON) bad username (/etc/crontab)
> 
> My crontab content is:
> 
> # cat crontab
> SHELL=/bin/bash
> PATH=/sbin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin
> MAILTO=root
> HOME=/
> 
> # For details see man 4 crontabs
> 
> # Example of job definition:
> # .---------------- minute (0 - 59)
> # |  .------------- hour (0 - 23)
> # |  |  .---------- day of month (1 - 31)
> # |  |  |  .------- month (1 - 12) OR jan,feb,mar,apr ...
> # |  |  |  |  .---- day of week (0 - 6) (Sunday=0 or 7) OR 
> sun,mon,tue,wed,thu,fri,sat
> # |  |  |  |  |
> # *  *  *  *  *  command to be executed
> 1 4 * * * /usr/bin/rsync -a /home/ /media/2GHJTCB4/backups/hda/home

The /etc/crontab file is slightly different format than a normal
per-user crontab file. It has to have a user name added before the
command, so that should be:

1 4 * * * root /usr/bin/rsync -a /home/ /media/2GHJTCB4/backups/hda/home

If you read the various crontab man pages about 15 times you can
almost discover this is documented :-).