UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

Hi,

I have a solaris 10 box. And I want to schedule a cronjob.But it gives the following error

I checked in /etc/cron.d/ dir. The following files are there. And the cron.deny file does not have the user listed


Pls suggest what needs to be done

Thanks

It cant open something inexistant...
You will have to write one from scratch...
call it mycronfile and when done you launch it by typing:

Code:

crontab mycronfile

Hi

Thanks for your reply. Could you let me know where to create the cron file.
I assumed by using crontab -e , it will let me write entries and then save it using the editor.

Actual crontabs live in

Code:

/usr/spool/cron/crontabs/<username>

so for user root there should be a file

Code:

/usr/spool/cron/crontabs/root

Not all users need to have a crontab file exist; only the users with jobs scheduled.

Shouldn't cron silently do nothing unless there's a permissions issue, though?

@corona688.....can you please elaborate on the point you are making

If the user in question can access (cat) their own crontab file (on the path I gave) then surely the crontab utility should also work.

An empty crontab can be created with 'touch' and then the correct user access rights set on it.

Users should not edit crontabs directly but use the crontab utility. If they do edit a crontab directly (not recommended), then the cron service will need to be restarted otherwise the amendment(s) may not be seen and scheduled for up to 24 hrs.

If there was no crontab, crontab -l should silently do nothing, yes? But they get "can't open", which might be a permissions issue instead.