[Techtalk] Dillon's Cron No Longer Sends Email?

[Kai MacTane]

Hi, Chix--

I'm running a Slackware 10.2 install, including Dillon's cron v2.3.3. 
There is no system standard /etc/crontab; instead, root has his (my) own 
crontab, which has the usual:

    5 0 1 * *        run-parts /etc/cron.monthly
    1 0 * * *        run-parts /etc/cron.daily
    0 * * * *        run-parts /etc/cron.hourly
    */15 * * * *     run-parts /etc/cron.quad.hourly
    */5 * * * *      run-parts /etc/cron.5minutely
    * * * * *        run-parts /etc/cron.minutely

in it, as well as this other line:

    3 0 * * *        /usr/local/sbin/backup

I recently (roughly a couple of weeks ago) switched my mail server from 
Qmail to Postfix.

Until a couple of nights ago, all was well. The various scripts run by 
cron were mostly set to emit output on STDOUT if anything went wrong; 
such output would be picked up by crond and emailed to me. One of the 
cron.daily scripts is written to *always* produce output, thus mailing 
me various statistics.

A few nights ago, I stopped getting such mails. I've now set one of the 
minutely scripts to always produce a line of output, just for debugging 
purposes. I have not been buried in a flurry of minutely emails.

But crond is still running, doing everything just like it should. For 
example:

root at finrod:~# tail /var/log/cron
Dec  7 11:57:01 finrod crond[16185]: USER root pid 25211 cmd run-parts 
/etc/cron.minutely
Dec  7 11:58:01 finrod crond[16185]: USER root pid 25455 cmd run-parts 
/etc/cron.minutely
Dec  7 11:59:01 finrod crond[16185]: USER root pid 25704 cmd run-parts 
/etc/cron.minutely
Dec  7 12:00:01 finrod crond[16185]: USER root pid 25941 cmd run-parts 
/etc/cron.hourly
Dec  7 12:00:01 finrod crond[16185]: USER root pid 25942 cmd run-parts 
/etc/cron.quad.hourly
Dec  7 12:00:01 finrod crond[16185]: USER root pid 25943 cmd run-parts 
/etc/cron.5minutely
Dec  7 12:00:01 finrod crond[16185]: USER root pid 25944 cmd run-parts 
/etc/cron.minutely
Dec  7 12:01:01 finrod crond[16185]: USER root pid 26492 cmd run-parts 
/etc/cron.minutely
Dec  7 12:02:01 finrod crond[16185]: USER root pid 26736 cmd run-parts 
/etc/cron.minutely
Dec  7 12:03:01 finrod crond[16185]: USER root pid 26973 cmd run-parts 
/etc/cron.minutely

Also, files that are supposed to be created and updated by cron scripts 
are getting created and updated as they should.

I've already posted all non-comment lines from my crontab, but here's 
the whole thing, just for completeness:


# Run the 'atrun' program every 5 minutes
# This runs anything that's due to run from 'at'. See man 'at' or 'atrun'.
# Note that this is commented out since it's not needed if you run atd. 
  But,
# it's left as an example, since atd isn't strictly required.  You can still
# run it this way instead.
#0,5,10,15,20,25,30,35,40,45,50,55 * * * *  /usr/sbin/atrun 1> /dev/null 
2> /dev/null
#
# This touches a filename in the temp directory so that you can see cron is
# working if the timestamp is current. Comment it out if it bugs you. :^)
# * * * * *       touch /tmp/.crond_running

5 0 1 * *        run-parts /etc/cron.monthly
1 0 * * *        run-parts /etc/cron.daily
0 * * * *        run-parts /etc/cron.hourly
*/15 * * * *     run-parts /etc/cron.quad.hourly
*/5 * * * *      run-parts /etc/cron.5minutely
* * * * *        run-parts /etc/cron.minutely

3 0 * * *        /usr/local/sbin/backup


(Some lines in there may have gotten wrapped by my mail program, but I 
can verify that they are *not* incorrectly wrapped in vi.)

I've also verified that the emails aren't getting spam-filtered.

Does anyone have any ideas why this is happening, and how I can get them 
turned on again? Thanks in advance!

                                                 --Kai MacTane
----------------------------------------------------------------------
"She's gonna dream up the world she wants to live in,
  She's gonna dream out loud.
  Dream out loud."
                                                 --U2,
                                                  "Zooropa"