Bug 10746

Summary: /etc/crontab format
Product: [Retired] Red Hat Linux Reporter: Michael Redinger <michael.redinger>
Component: crontabsAssignee: Crutcher Dunnavant <crutcher>
Status: CLOSED NOTABUG QA Contact:
Severity: medium Docs Contact:
Priority: medium    
Version: 6.2   
Target Milestone: ---   
Target Release: ---   
Hardware: All   
OS: Linux   
Whiteboard:
Fixed In Version: Doc Type: Bug Fix
Doc Text:
Story Points: ---
Clone Of: Environment:
Last Closed: 2001-04-10 22:02:58 UTC Type: ---
Regression: --- Mount Type: ---
Documentation: --- CRM:
Verified Versions: Category: ---
oVirt Team: --- RHEL 7.3 requirements from Atomic Host:
Cloudforms Team: --- Target Upstream Version:
Embargoed:

Description Michael Redinger 2000-04-12 14:14:28 UTC 
Ok, maybe I'm missing something, but as I do not find any other
documentation, I suppose this is a bug:

After installation, there is no root crontab file, but there's a file
/etc/crontab. However, you must not install it using crontab /etc/crontab
because this file is not in cron format. It reads something like this:
01 * * * * root run-parts /etc/cron.hourly
However, for vixie-cron, this should read:
01 * * * * root run-parts /etc/cron.hourly


So, actually, if I am right, this are two bugs:

- the crontab should be installed per default (otherwise important
  scripts from /etc/cron.* will simply never run

- the format of /etc/crontab is wrong
Comment 1 Bill Nottingham 2000-04-12 15:33:59 UTC 
/etc/crontab is read automatically by the cron daemon.
See the cron(8) man page.