Bug 2241

Summary: don't use killall in cron.log
Product: [Retired] Red Hat Linux Reporter: dgaudet-redhat
Component: vixie-cronAssignee: Crutcher Dunnavant <crutcher>
Status: CLOSED NEXTRELEASE QA Contact:
Severity: medium Docs Contact:
Priority: medium    
Version: 5.2   
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 22:01:56 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 dgaudet-redhat 1999-04-17 17:56:13 UTC
Please apply the below patch to cron.log.

reason:  vixie-cron has a feature whereby it mails the
stdout and stderr from a cronjob to the user running the
cronjob.  To do this it fork()s, and the child waits until
the cronjob has completed to determine if mail needs to be
sent.  By using killall you end up killing the child in
addition to HUPing the parent.

So, for example, any errors generated while rotating the
logs will be completely lost, rather than mailed to root.
Instead of using killall, send the HUP to the cron parent
directly.

Dean

--- cron.log.orig       Sat Apr 17 10:47:25 1999
+++ cron.log    Sat Apr 17 10:48:23 1999
@@ -1,5 +1,5 @@
 /var/log/cron {
     postrotate
-       /usr/bin/killall -HUP crond
+       /bin/kill -HUP `/bin/cat /var/run/crond.pid`
     endscript
 }

Comment 1 dgaudet-redhat 1999-04-17 18:02:59 UTC
Ah, interesting.  Your bug form corrupted the patch.  Those
should be backticks, not forward ticks.

In any event, I've been using this patch for over a year...
I submitted it previously, I guess it got lost.

Comment 2 Jeff Johnson 1999-06-03 09:43:59 UTC
Added in vixie-cron-3.0.1-34. Thanks for the patch.