Description of problem: After upgrade to vixie-cron-4.1-10.EL3, cron.d/* failed to start because they have +x rights and crond reports "BAD FILE MODE" Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable): vixie-cron-4.1-10.EL3 How reproducible: Install ES3 with vixie-cron-3.0.1-76_EL3, write a cron job in a cron.d/test file. Make it executeable (chmod +x ). Watch it working. Upgrade to vixie-cron-4.1-10.EL3. Cron job doesn't work anymore. Steps to Reproduce: 1. echo "*/2 * * * * root echo working" > /etc/cron.d/test_cron 2. chmod +x /etc/cron.d/test_cron 3. receive some mails 4. upgrade to vixie-cron-4.1-10.EL3 5. tail -f /var/log/cron and you should have Jun 16 10:41:17 acteon crond[4780]: (CRON) STARTUP (V5.0) Jun 16 10:41:17 acteon crond[4780]: (*system*) BAD FILE MODE (/etc/cron.d/test_cron) Actual results: Jun 16 10:41:17 acteon crond[4780]: (CRON) STARTUP (V5.0) Jun 16 10:41:17 acteon crond[4780]: (*system*) BAD FILE MODE (/etc/cron.d/test_cron) Expected results: Maybe a warning, but my crons should be working. Additional info:
No crontab can or should be executable - sorry, but the attribute checking in upstream vixie-cron-4.1 was put there for a security reason, and this default behavior will not be changed. If you use crontab to edit / create crontab files, this issue would not arise. There is a very simple workaround: # chmod a-x /var/spool/cron/*/* /etc/crontab /etc/cron.d/*
Sure, I know the workaround. I'm just a little amazed that a security change that changed current behaviour was not mentionned in the errata. My system was working before this update and it wasn't working anymore after this update. Errata available for a specific version (ES3 for me) should support any specific behaviour of previous version or it needs to be written somewhere. Thanks for your response anyway.