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

Elwing elwing at elwing.org
Fri Dec 7 20:24:00 UTC 2007


I'm not sure on details, but check your mail server logs to see if  
anything is being sent to the mail server.  That might give you some  
details.  (such as somehow the cron daemon/localhost managed to get  
spam blacklisted)

Elwing

On Dec 7, 2007, at 3:09 PM, Kai MacTane wrote:

> 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"
>
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