cron jobs

UNIX for Advanced & Expert Users
1

I need to monitor my cron jobs with another unix machine since occasionally the cron will go down on the main server but there are no errors. Can anyone help with a script to write to use the cron on the back up machine to monitor the main server?
I am using SCO and the cron jobs have been increased to well over what we use.

2

Hi, it's a concern cron dies to the point you want to monitor it from another system.

I would suggest either a ssh into the box and just doing a quick ps for cron and restart if not there, or running a process in nohup to monitor.

I would really suggest you investigate why cron is dying though, this may be caused by other underlying issues. I've had systems running for years that never had cron die.

The only time I've ever seen cron die was on a redhat system that was very unloved and never patched or logged into really. An upgraded version of cron fixed this problem.

Thanks

3

hmm, untested under SCO and just a suggestion: if you start cron with "respawn" in the /etc/inittab it should be restarted by init automatically, yes? Similar to the terminal process, which gets respawned when a user logs off and terminates the tty process.

bakunin

4

Thanks for the replies,
we have added a check and restart cron from a linux box and yes this will enable us to be emailed when it gets restarted then we can resenarch the problem.
It has gone down about 10 or 15 times in the last 4 years, the cron seems to take certain holidays off when nobody is watching.