Crontab help

[davidh]

Thanks to Witness and rony--the poller is now working (I had a typo in my rrdtool path)--sorry I wasted your time on that one.

I have one more issue and then I am up and running. The poller will run only if I issue from command line. The entry in my crontab is not working(will not run automatically).

Here is my complete crontab:

SHELL=/bin/bash
PATH=/sbin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin
MAILTO=root
HOME=/

# run-parts
01 * * * * root run-parts /etc/cron.hourly
02 4 * * * root run-parts /etc/cron.daily
22 4 * * 0 root run-parts /etc/cron.weekly
42 4 1 * * root run-parts /etc/cron.monthly


*/5****cactiuser /www/php/bin/php /www/htdocs/cacti/poller.php > /dev/null 2>&1

Witness told me in another post to change output from /dev/null. Do I just change to /usr/local/somefile.txt? Do I leave the 2>&1? Thank you so much.

If I issue /www/php/bin/php /www/htdocs/cacti/poller.php from command--poller will work.

David

[rony]

Well, I wouldn't run the poller as root, and I wouldn't edit the system crontab.

I would run the poller as another user, for example, cactiuser. To edit the cactiuser crontab I would use, as root:

Code: Select all

crontab -e -u cactiuser

This will allow me to edit the crontab for the cactiuser user. Then I would put the following line in the crontab.

Code: Select all

*/5**** /www/php/bin/php /www/htdocs/cacti/poller.php > /dev/null 2>&1

Making sure that the cactiuser has permissions to excute php and to read and write the /www/htdocs/cacti/log and /www/htdocs/cacti/rra directories.

As for logging the output of the poller to a file, well, that is personal choice. I wouldn't as durning a situation where I want see that output, I can simply run the poller manually from the command line and see that output for myself.

[davidh]

Rory,

Thanks for response--I was out of office all day--I will try tomorrow.

[davidh]

Rony,

Sorry about this--I am new to linux and need to be babied.

To follow your instructions, do I type

crontab -e -u cactiuser in the command line. When I do this,

Here is what I get:

~
~
~
~
~
~
~
~
~
~
~
~
~
~
~
~
~
~
~
~
~
"/tmp/crontab.XXXX1pO3Gh" 0L, 0C


Does this change me to cactiuser?? I don't know where/how to edit crontab for cactiuser. Thank you for your patience.

David

[fmangeant]

Hi

you can either run "crontab -e -u cactiuser" as root, or "crontab -e" as cactiuser.

If your editor is VI, just type 'i', followed by

Code: Select all

*/5 * * * * /usr/bin/php /www/htdocs/cacti > /dev/null 2>&1

and then quit VI with ":x"

[john le lardon]

you can also assign an other file .
with commande:
crontab -u <user> <path_to_file>/<file_to_use_for_crond>

like this you can use gedit to make a new file for you'r crond (but don't forget line in /etc/crontab !)
i use this methode because my VI don't want save and quit >_< ( error 127 )

[davidh]

I now get this error:

[root@fedora1 ~]# crontab -e -u cactiuser
no crontab for cactiuser - using an empty one
crontab: installing new crontab
"/tmp/crontab.XXXXBGQ7Y7":1: bad minute
errors in crontab file, can't install.
Do you want to retry the same edit? y
crontab: installing new crontab


Any suggestions.

Thanks

[rony]

What are you trying to put in the crontab?

[davidh]

Rony,

I am putting

*/5 * * * * /www/php/bin/php /www/htdocs/cacti/poller.php > /dev/null 2>&1

[fmangeant]

Some (old) cron daemons dont know "*/5". Try 0,5,10,15,20,25,30,35,40,45,50,55 instead.

[rony]

Code: Select all

*/5 * * * * /www/php/bin/php /www/htdocs/cacti/poller.php > /dev/null 2>&1

Um, what operating system?

[davidh]

Sorry,

FC3

[rony]

That should work, make sure you do not have a space in front of the line.

[davidh]

OK, patience--I still am having problems.

When I am logged in as cactiuser, I type cactiuser -e in terminal, which takes me to vi.
I type 'i', then:

*/5**** /www/php/bin/php /www/htdocs/cacti/poller.php > /dev/null 2>&1


When I attempt to exit I get this error:

"/tmp/crontab.XXXXMZxUlS":1: bad minute
errors in crontab file, can't install.
Do you want to retry the same edit?

I also tried the 0,5,10,15,20,25,30,35,40,45,50,55 and got bad hour.

Again, I know it is something stupid, but I can't see it. Appreciate the help.

[john le lardon]

do you have try to use my solution? just specify the file of crontab? and using gedit... is the easiest way ...