format of /etc/crontab?

Rich Morin rdm at cfcl.com
Thu Jul 3 21:32:25 UTC 2003


At 2:12 PM -0700 7/3/03, Brooks Davis wrote:
>Hmm, cron(8) mentions that /etc/crontab is in a difference format and
>refrences crontab(5), but you seems to be correct that crontab(5)
>doesn't mention the differences.  I'm fairly sure the only difference is
>the who field between the time and command specifications.  ...

OK; I'd suggest the following change to crontab(5):

   The ``sixth'' field (the rest of the line) specifies the command to be ...
   ---
   In the case of /etc/crontab, another field (username) follows the time
   and date fields.  This is normally set to root, but other names can be
   specified; the command will be setuid(2) to the corresponding uid.

   The ``final'' field (the rest of the line) specifies the command to be ...

The man page also discusses the use of "eight special strings" (e.g.,
"@reboot".  I suspect that these be used in /etc/crontab, as:

   @reboot  rdm  rm -rf /usr/tmp/rdm

I don't know if this needs to be explicated, but it couldn't hurt...

-r
-- 
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