[NTLUG:Discuss] testing and results Re: crontab issue

[Robert Citek]

What distro?  For example, here's a command using "su" run on FC4:

# su - foo date
/bin/date: /bin/date: cannot execute binary file

The same command on Ubuntu 6.06:

# su - foo date
Thu Mar 15 10:25:15 CDT 2007

Both were run as user root.

FWIW, here's a sample crontab for root under Ubuntu 6.06:

SHELL=/bin/bash
* * * * * date > /tmp/date.cron.1
* * * * * date +%Y > /tmp/date.cron.2
* * * * * date +\%Y > /tmp/date.cron.3
* * * * * su - foo date +\%Y > /tmp/date.cron.4
* * * * * su - foo "date +\%Y > /tmp/date.cron.5"

All of the above work with the exception of cron.2.  That's because %Y
is interpreted by cron before being passed on to the date command.  The
cron.4 file differs from the cron.5 file in that cron.4 is owned by root
while cron.5 is owned by foo.  I got no errors about stdin, stderr, or
stdout.

HTH,
- Robert

Fred James wrote:
> All
> First, a thank you to everyone who responded with suggestions.  I used 
> those suggestions to put together a series of test and I include a brief 
> description of the whole thing herein.  Unless someone has a further 
> suggestion, it looks like I could live with number 6 and redirect stderr 
> to /dev/null.
> 
> Thank you in advance for any help you may be able to offer
> Regards
> Fred James
> 
> [Test description]
> I put 9 lines into the crontab (like those shown below) and I have 
> grouped the results in the three main categories (also below).  To 
> summarize however, number 6 while producing error messages, is the only 
> one that used both the arguments and the user's environmental variables.
> 
> [error messages]
> 1-5 had no error messages
> 6-7 each had two error messages: stdin: is not a tty, and: TERM 
> environment variable not set.
> 8-9 each had one error message: stdin: is not a tty
> 
> [arguments]
> 1,2,and 6 used the arguments
> 3,5,7,and 9 had no arguments given, so of course they did use them
> 4,and 8 had arguments but didn't use them
> 
> [user's environment (.profile)]
> 1-5 did not use the user's environmental values
> 6-9 did use the user's environmental values
> 
> (1) 5 * * * * /username/program 1 2 3 4 5 one two three four 2> 
> /tmp/errorfile1
> (2) 6 * * * * su username /username/program 1 2 3 4 5 one two three four 
> 2> /tmp/errorfile2
> (3) 7 * * * * su username /username/program 2> /tmp/errorfile3
> (4) 8 * * * * su username -c /username/program 1 2 3 4 5 one two three 
> four 2> /tmp/errorfile4
> (5) 9 * * * * su username -c /username/program 2> /tmp/errorfile5
> (6) 10 * * * * su - username /username/program 1 2 3 4 5 one two three 
> four 2> /tmp/errorfile6
> (7) 11 * * * * su - username /username/program 2> /tmp/errorfile7
> (8) 12 * * * * su - username -c /username/program 1 2 3 4 5 one two 
> three four 2> /tmp/errorfile8
> (9) 13 * * * * su - username -c /username/program 2> /tmp/errorfile9