Revisiting cron -- Re: crontab

[Robert Moskowitz]

On 11/18/2010 10:30 AM, Tom Horsley wrote:
> On Thu, 18 Nov 2010 10:05:08 -0500
> Robert Moskowitz wrote:
>
>    
>> OK. But what about:
>> http://mailman.linuxchix.org/pipermail/courses/2004-February/001389.html
>> which is old, but says that there is a user field in the /etc/crontab
>> version? Is there?
>>      
> The crontab(5) man page says there is (if you read it 5 or six
> times to decrypt the convoluted description :-).

Us dyslexics have to read it 7-9 times! Thanks.

> My /etc/crontab
> file certainly seems to have a user field:
>
> 01 * * * * root run-parts /etc/cron.hourly
> 02 4 * * * root run-parts /etc/cron.daily
> 22 4 * * 0 root run-parts /etc/cron.weekly
> 42 4 1 * * root run-parts /etc/cron.monthly
>    

I am just observing the comments in the file:

# 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

No user field specifed...

Well I will remove the /var/spool/cron/root file and go with the 
/etc/crontab, as it is easier to document what you have customized on a 
system this way (IMNSHO).