Re: [Sheflug] Stupid cron question

["Chris J/#6" <nospam [at] nccnet.co.uk>]

> Just out of interest, how does the system figure where to store a
> user's crontab?
> 

Hard coded in cron I'd imagine -- do a "strings crontab" and a "strings cron" 
see if the path leaps out at you. Failing that, strace the bugger :)


> Why bother with the wierdly named /tmp/ file?
> 

When you type "crontab -e", crontab starts $EDITOR. This editor is editing 
that temproray file. When you save and close $EDITOR, it installs the 
temporary file /tmp/foo.bar to /var/spool/cron/crontabs (or wherever). The 
temporary filename is random, and in your case I'd imagine the template for 
the name is /tmp/crontab.<pid>. On my box, the temporary file is 
/tmp/crontab.XXXXQQe4uS.

Try doing "crontab -l > myfile" then "crontab myfile" (this replaces the 
current crontab, which, cunningly enough is an unchanged cron. Assuming 
crontab -l worked anyway :) ), then look at the installed crontab. You'll see 
/tmp/foo.bar replaced with myfile.

Chris...



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