[arch-general] Stuff in /etc/cron.d/ won't work?

[Sven-Hendrik Haase]

On 26.08.2009 05:10, Aaron Griffin wrote:
> On Tue, Aug 25, 2009 at 7:46 PM, Sven-Hendrik Haase<sh at lutzhaase.com> wrote:
>   
>> On 25.08.2009 22:21, Nicolas Bigaouette wrote:
>>     
>>> Would your script needs a shebang?
>>>
>>> 2009/8/25 Sven-Hendrik Haase <sh at lutzhaase.com>
>>>
>>>
>>>       
>>>> On 25.08.2009 12:51, solsTiCe d'Hiver wrote:
>>>>
>>>>         
>>>>>> the crond log tells me that cron actually runs this command every
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>             
>>>>> minute without a problem
>>>>> i think you mis-read your log. and it should tell you that cron is
>>>>> looking for changes in /etc/cron.d every minute.
>>>>> may be, if you change you first * * * in your lol then may be it will
>>>>> work.
>>>>> assuming you're using the good cron. because fcron does not
>>>>> support /etc/cron.d but there is other ways to achieve the same thing.
>>>>>
>>>>> check crond man page or its documentation
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>           
>>>> I'm using dcron and also I didn't misread. Also, dcron doesn't look for
>>>> changes in said directory without restarting from what I have found out.
>>>> It actually tells me what it is going to execute and that is my
>>>> /etc/cron.d/lol file. It would report and error otherwise. The thing
>>>> that strikes me is that the command doesn't actually do anything. echo
>>>> is a shell built-in of sh, bash, any shell really so env vars shouldn't
>>>> be an issue.
>>>>
>>>> Any ideas?
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>         
>>>       
>> No, stuff in /etc/cron.d/ looks just like stuff in your crontab and gets
>> executed by the shell mentioned in $SHELL. Still, it wouldn't matter
>> because I'm using a built-in here. I'm really baffled by this.
>>     
>
> For the record, I've always had issues with this myself. I remedied it
> by simply putting things in root's crontab, but that's not a proper
> solution. If you can figure out how to get /etc/cron.d/ working as it
> should, I will love you forever
>
>   
>From web searches, it appears that dcron's support for /etc/cron.d is
somewhat wacky and not guaranteed to work. I think having a look at
bcron might be worth it. Find it here: http://untroubled.org/bcron/ and
find the AUR package here: http://aur.archlinux.org/packages.php?ID=6841.
A somewhat old assessment of available cron daemons by bcron's author
can be found here: http://untroubled.org/bcron/old/bcron_1.html.
Out of interest, I just looked up what other distros use for their cron
system and surprise! Ubuntu and Debian both use bcron and /etc/cron.d
works alright.
I shall hereby request changing Arch's default cron daemon to bcron in
order to fix the /etc/cron.d issues, to make Arch seem more modern and
to make Aaron love me forever (whatever it is that will subsequently
happen from that).