UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

am getting the following error while trying to create a new crontab file:

(jravisha) jravisha- crontab -e
no crontab for jravisha - using an empty one
crontab: installing new crontab
"/tmp/crontab.XXXXH3SJgR":1: premature EOF
errors in crontab file, can't install.
Do you want to retry the same edit?

any idea why?

You can do something like this---

crontab -e "username"
if you are a user put your name as a user something like

crontab -e jravisha

Thanks
Namish

Nope! sorry that doesnt work

crontab -e jravisha
crontab: usage error: no arguments permitted after this option
usage: crontab [-u user] file
crontab [-u user] [ -e | -l | -r ]
(default operation is replace, per 1003.2)
-e (edit user's crontab)
-l (list user's crontab)
-r (delete user's crontab)
-i (prompt before deleting user's crontab)

Where you are running this command.I am running in solaris and it is working perfectlly fine for me.Here jravisha should be a user added in unix machine otherwise it wont work.did you get what i say.The user name is through which you login to unix prompt.

Thanks
Namish

identified the issue... u need to press enter a carriage return at the end of the line.

Hi,

You can issue crontab -l , it will list out the all crontjob which is in you terminal (server). Sometime you will not get anything if issue the crontab -e command in you server because i think your user doesn't have the previlleges for edit the crontab;

crontab -l --> List out the all cronjobs in your server but you can't edit the cronjobs.
crontab -e --> List out the all cronjobs and you can edit the cronjobs

Regards,
Siva.P
Bangalore