Conference turris::digital_unix

9515.0. "Why does cron vanish from the system ?" by QCAV01::DEVARAJAN () Wed Apr 16 1997 00:55

    We have a problem under Digital UNIX V3.2D/3.2G.  This customer is an
    ISP.
    
    Problem 1: (under Digital UNIX V3.2D)
    
    The 'cron' process vanishes from the system quite often.  There are no
    messages in any of the log files.  Because of this all their daily
    accounting processes get stuck, which are in
    /var/spool/cron/crontabs/root.
    
    What could be the reason ?  We find it difficult to track, since there
    are no messages in the log files.
    
    Problem 2 : (under both 3.2D and 3.2G versions)
    
    There are spurious entries in the utmp file.  That is, even after a
    user has logged out and the login process killed, the utmp file still
    contains that user's entry and the idle time keeps going up.  There are
    NO processes.  How can we tackle this situation ?
    
    These two things are very crucial for the customer as both of them
    affect accounting severely.
    
    Thanks for any inputs.
    
    
                                  

Do you have a valid crontab file for root? 

I've seen disapearing cron processes when there was NO crontab file 
for root. 

    Perfectly OK crontab "root" file (/var/spool/cron/crontabs/root)
    exists.  We are using it for various housekeeping functions daily as I
    mentioned earlier.  If cron vanishes, all the housekeeping is fouled
    up.  Now, what could be the reason ?
    

The problem sounds familiar. I'd check for patches to
cron as well as shell patches.

> We are using it for various housekeeping functions daily as I
>    mentioned earlier. 

This wouldn't happen to include dumps would it??? 

If so then .3 is very very relevant (not to mention you're not meant 
to do dumps unattended).

    Nope!
    
    It includes only  scripts to cycle the accounting files and gather
    accounting info.
    
    R. Devarajan