Weird crontab problem

UNIX Solaris
1

Greetings To All!

I am running Solaris 10 in a sparc environment.

Here is the deal:

In /var/spool/cron/crontabs, there is a cron user named "sys". If I do a
crontab -l sys, it returns:

# 0 * * * 0-6 /usr/lib/sa/sa1
# 20,40 8-17 * * 1-5 /usr/lib/sa/sa1
# 5 18 * * 1-5 /usr/lib/sa/sa2 -s 8:00 -e 18:01 -i 1200 -A

I have tried to modify the above job by changing the first line...and uncommenting all 3 lines, so that it will read the following at run time:

0,5,10,15,20,25,30,35,40,45,50,55 * * * 0-6 /usr/lib/sa/sa1
20,40 8-17 * * 1-5 /usr/lib/sa/sa1
5 18 * * 1-5 /usr/lib/sa/sa2 -s 8:00 -e 18:01 -i 1200 -A

I am making the above mentioned modification as user "sys", who owns this particular cron job.

The problem is this:

For some weird, unexplainable reason, the modified cron job:

0,5,10,15,20,25,30,35,40,45,50,55 * * * 0-6 /usr/lib/sa/sa1
20,40 8-17 * * 1-5 /usr/lib/sa/sa1
5 18 * * 1-5 /usr/lib/sa/sa2 -s 8:00 -e 18:01 -i 1200 -A

will always revert back to its original default to read:

# 0 * * * 0-6 /usr/lib/sa/sa1
# 20,40 8-17 * * 1-5 /usr/lib/sa/sa1
# 5 18 * * 1-5 /usr/lib/sa/sa2 -s 8:00 -e 18:01 -i 1200 -A

Anyone have any ideas what could be causing this? This one has me scratching my head...

Your replies are greatly appreciated!

Sincerely

RobSand

2

How are you changing it?

Are you using the "crontab" tool to update the table?

3

When does it revert? Looking at the Solaris 10 source code, I notice this: Cross Reference: /onnv/onnv-gate/usr/src/cmd/sa/svc-sar

4

I am using: crontab -e sys

5

I do not know what time it reverted; I looked in the cron log and could not find anything in there.

Rob

6

If the file was changed, so was the timestamp on the file. But I wasn't looking for simply a timestamp. I mean, for example, does it change on reboot? Does it change once a day? Are you stopping and restarting the service, and if so does that change it? Etc.

7

Have you tried su'ing to the sys user and doing a bit of crontab -e as that user directly?

8

Which editor you use to modify cronjob ?
If you use edit , sometime it works weird as if wrote to file but it doesn't.
I recommend that;

EDITOR=vi
export EDITOR
crontab -e

go with vi...and modify and save...

9

To Everyone Who Answered This Thread,

This ended up being the solution:

Instead of editing the crontab file /var/spool/cron/crontabs/sys using the command crontab -e sys, the problem was fixed when I edited the file directly using vi as user root. I know this sounds illogical, especially considering the fact that crontab -e sys is the "clean" way to do a crontab file edit, but hey...that's what works!

Also, I wanted to thank each and everyone of you for giving me some of your valuable time by posting to this thread. One of the things that I have found to be true in these forums is that, oftentimes, there is no single posting that adequately answers a problem/question. But rather, it is the collective accumulation of a bunch of good, close answers that most often leads to a workable solution.

Thanks again guys (and ladies). Ya'll are the best and it is through your unselfish efforts is what makes the forums a success!

Rob Sandifer