Editing crontab of non-root user from file Post: 302549394

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Top Forums UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers Editing crontab of non-root user from file Post 302549394 by nivedhitha on Tuesday 23rd of August 2011 02:11:12 AM

08-23-2011

Registered User

Hi Corona688,

Thank you for your reply.

But I did a mistake by referring another thread, as I created an impression that I am working in Windows. There is no Windows system in the picture. I would like to clarify the situation. The system runs on AIX. I referred to the thread because I got this when I searched a solution for this issue.

My requirement is to run a script as root, which adds a job to a normal user's cron file.
But the constraints are:
1)Other portions of the script needs root privileges. So normal user cannot execute it.
2)It is not possible to manually edit cronfile, because this and other steps should be part of a big script that would be executed on a number of systems.
3)Root cannot give the command

Code:

cat /tmp/tmp_cronfile | crontab -

(where /tmp/tmp_cronfile contains the text to add the job to the normal user's cron file)
because this command ends up in changing root's cron file and not the normal user's cron file.

The command

Code:

crontab filename

will also not help for the same reason.

My question is how to modify the above command in such a way that it modifies a normal user's cron file, even while running as root.
Is it something to do with the -l or -u flags of the crontab command?

Thanks again.

nivedhitha

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LEARN ABOUT OSF1

cron

cron(8) 						      System Manager's Manual							   cron(8)

NAME

       cron - The system clock daemon

SYNOPSIS

       /usr/sbin/cron

DESCRIPTION

       The cron daemon runs shell commands at specified dates and times.  Commands that are to run according to a regular or periodic schedule are
       found within the crontab files.	Commands that are to run once only are found within the at files.  You submit crontab and at file  entries
       by  using  the  crontab	and  at  commands.  Because the cron process exits only when killed or when the system stops, only one cron daemon
       should exist on the system at any given time.  Normally, you start the cron daemon from within a run command file.

       During process initialization and when cron detects a change, it examines the crontab and at files.  This strategy reduces the overhead	of
       checking  for  new  or  changed files at regularly scheduled intervals.	The cron command creates a log of its activities.  The cron daemon
       must be started from the system startup scripts because it must begin execution without a login user ID set.  The cron daemon  starts  each
       job  with the following process attributes stored with the job by the invoking process: Login user ID Effective and real user IDs Effective
       and real group IDs Supplementary groups

       It also establishes the following attributes from the authentication profile of the account associated with the login user ID of the invok-
       ing process: Audit control and disposition masks Kernel authorizations

DIAGNOSTICS

       The at and batch programs will refuse to accept jobs submitted from processes whose login user ID is different from the real user ID.

FILES

       Specifies the command path.  Main cron directory Directory containing the crontab files.  List of allowed users.  List of denied users His-
       tory information for cron Queue description file for at, batch, and cron

RELATED INFORMATION

       Commands:  at(1), crontab(1), rc0(8), rc2(8), rc3(8)

       Files: queuedefs(4) delim off

																	   cron(8)

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