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still breaking my head over how to find out what (if anything) happened to my cron jobs; finally http://bencane.com/2011/11/02/did-my-cronjob-run/ gave me a clue: Hal (ASUSTOR NAS) has /etc/rsyslog.conf which has the line '#cron.* -/var/log/cron' - and this: '*.info;mail.none;authpriv.none;cron.none -/var/log/messages' aha! never mind enabling syslog when cron logging is doubly disabled; there is also the fact that 'crontab' is a busybox command here so options may be (even) more limited... off to experiment more...
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@mk the problem with /etc/rsyslog.conf is of course that it's under the system root, thus loaded from flash memory at boot time - so any changes will be completely wiped out on reboot :(
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@lnxw48 no, none that I know of (and I dug around a lot in the forum); the only way for some changes seems to be to store them in the /volume0 or /volume1 branches and copy scripts over at boot time - via cron, which is what I'm now trying to debug ;-) #catch22
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@mk yay! I FINALLY managed to get (busybox...) crond to log to a log file; though setting the log level via '-l N' does not seem to be supported (but there may be a workaround for that via '-d N'). So now I know that a) the updatedb command (to update locate database) is actually running and b) that it is unsuccessful because the output file is locked. #real #progress
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@mk I'm also finding lots of confusion all over the pkace becaue there are many different versions of cron which support (do not support) different features - never mind if they are mentioned in the man page. Hard to know how to write a crontab file that way! #ugh
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@mk ...and slowly, slowly, am I getting this nice #NAS box called Hal a bit more under control. Lots of riddles and #frustrations today, but also #learning, #discoveries, and #progress. In all, a good day (in spite of seemingly having a cold!). And more things to figure out #tomorrow. Like: *which* changes that I made *actually* made cron start writing to a log file? and: how do I replace a @reboot crontab rule because BusyBox doesn't support it? There are probably 2, maybe multiple ways... #hammock, for now!
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@mk This morning, with more entries in the cron log (and even the system log) I'm starting to notice some odd patterns... 1) after ONE manual ntpdate update 23:24 , I am seeing THREE updates about an hour later (all at the same time 00:30) in syslog - but only TWO entries in the cron log - after that, no more entries. 2) Meanwhile, at 23:02 (BEFORE the automated ntpdate) an EXTRA crond was started, while the old one apparently continued running. 3) From then on, the automated updatedb is successful for the NEW crond while the old crond (not surprisingly) encounters a locked mlocate.db file. Both crond's do ONE ntpd update at 00:30 - it's not clear where the third one (recorded in syslog) at the same time came fery hour one successful and one failed updatedb - but nothing else (no ntpdate) is recorded in the log... #nas #cron #confuzzled
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@mk what's also odd is that this second cron can not have been started with the same command-line parameters I gave the first one - but it's logging to the cron log anyway. ??? #evenmoreconfuzzled
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@mk ...and in the process list on ADM I see THREE crond's running (that would explain the three ntpdate updates, but not why they stopped again after that)