UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

For some reason, I get the following error message when I do a crontab -l:

bt299m02!tier2[30] crontab -l
crontab: Cannot run 'crontab' except under your login UID

I verify that I am logged in as root with the id command:

bt299m02!tier2[29] id
uid=0(root) gid=1(other)

A quick snapshot of my cron jobs is:

bt299m02!tier2[34] pwd
/usr/spool/cron/crontabs
bt299m02!tier2[35] ls -la
total 14
d---rwx--- 2 bin cron 112 Dec 30 1998 ./
d---r-x--- 4 bin cron 64 Sep 10 1994 ../
----rw---- 1 bin cron 351 Sep 10 1994 adm
-r--r----- 1 root cron 1439 Dec 30 1998 root
----rw---- 1 bin cron 396 Sep 10 1994 sys
----rw---- 1 bin cron 224 Sep 10 1994 uucp

What in the world does that error message mean???

-cd

Never seen it before - but then again, I've never seen a file with a group ownership of cron.

Things to try:
Check that root is part of that group (cron).
Insure you do a su - to root.
See if you can edit the file (as root)
Check that crontab hasn't been set up as some kind of alias

Are you using any 3rd party scheduling software?

What is the OS and version?

check the file /usr/spool/cron/crontabs/root

cd /usr/spool/cron/crontabs
chmod 660 root
then try it again

d---rwx--- 2 bin cron 112 Dec 30 1998 ./
d---r-x--- 4 bin cron 64 Sep 10 1994 ../

ls -ld /usr/spool/cron/crontabs
you have no read permission in the directory

I recently had a similar problem because someone had changed root's shell.

What OS are you running?
What is the output of this command:

Code:

echo $SHELL