Error when trying to edit crontab


 
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Old 01-25-2010
Error when trying to edit crontab

Hi Guys,

I need to edit the crontab on one of my unix systems. When I execute crontab -e, nothing happens, then I get an error '666' and can't type anything else at the cli.

I tried resizing the window, but still got the same error. I'm using the run user and I've checked the permissions on the cron file. Anyone know what else can be the cause?

Thanks.

---------- Post updated at 12:05 PM ---------- Previous update was at 12:02 PM ----------

Nevermind guys. ..

Code:
EDITOR=vi; export EDITOR

fixed it. Thanks.

Smilie
 
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CRON(8) 						      System Manager's Manual							   CRON(8)

NAME
cron - daemon to execute scheduled commands (Vixie Cron) SYNOPSIS
cron DESCRIPTION
Cron should be started from /etc/rc or /etc/rc.local. It will return immediately, so you don't need to start it with '&'. Cron searches /var/spool/cron for crontab files which are named after accounts in /etc/passwd; crontabs found are loaded into memory. Cron also searches for /etc/crontab and the files in the /etc/cron.d/ directory, which are in a different format (see crontab(5)). Cron then wakes up every minute, examining all stored crontabs, checking each command to see if it should be run in the current minute. When execut- ing commands, any output is mailed to the owner of the crontab (or to the user named in the MAILTO environment variable in the crontab, if such exists). Additionally, cron checks each minute to see if its spool directory's modtime (or the modtime on /etc/crontab) has changed, and if it has, cron will then examine the modtime on all crontabs and reload those which have changed. Thus cron need not be restarted whenever a crontab file is modified. Note that the Crontab(1) command updates the modtime of the spool directory whenever it changes a crontab. SEE ALSO
crontab(1), crontab(5) AUTHOR
Paul Vixie <paul@vix.com> 4th Berkeley Distribution 20 December 1993 CRON(8)