Disable Hourly Cron Emails

Carlwill · 2011-09-19 16:37:08

I keep getting hourly emails from root to root on my Linux email server. This just happened with the last update and it's extremely annoying now because my mail account 'carlos' is configured to receive email for root. The emails appear very useless:

Subject: cron for user root job sys-hourly

Body = Usage: /usr/sbin/run-cron crondir

Does anyone know exactly what this means and why it's doing it? I would like to also disable these constant notifications but not interrupt any server / cron functionality.

karol · 2011-09-19 16:51:00

https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=125392
He tried to find a better way, but no responses yet https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=125279

Carlwill · 2011-09-19 16:57:32

Hmmm weird. I wonder why now all of a sudden after I upgraded my Arch system they come every hour but before I never got them. Rather than deal with all of that mess above, I'm going to change the setting in /etc/aliases so my user doesn't get root's email.

karol · 2011-09-19 16:59:55

Maybe you're using another cron? Arch provides a couple.

Carlwill · 2011-09-19 17:32:28

I never knew that. I thought Cron was Cron and never knew Arch Linux had multiple versions of variations or Cron installed.

karol · 2011-09-19 17:36:06

Carlwill wrote:

I never knew that. I thought Cron was Cron and never knew Arch Linux had multiple versions of variations or Cron installed.

These are simply different implementations, different packages. Previously dcron was the default one, now it's cronie.

Last edited by karol (2011-09-19 17:36:29)

karol · 2011-09-20 00:12:35

I think you're using crond (because crond provides /usr/sbin/run-cron), not cronie, as graysky, so his fixes may not work for you.

Let's have a closer look at what /usr/sbin/run-cron is:

[karol@black ~]$ cat /usr/sbin/run-cron
#!/bin/sh
# this is a bare-bones alternative to Debian's run-parts

if ! [ -d "$1" ]; then
   echo "Usage: $0 crondir" >&2
   exit 1
fi

for cronfile in "$1"/* ; do
	if [ -x "$cronfile" ]; then
		"$cronfile"
	fi
done
unset cronfile

Body of the message you're getting is the output of /usr/sbin/run-cron run on a nonexisting directory - see the first 'if' clause in /usr/sbin/run-cron:

if ! [ -d "$1" ]; then
   echo "Usage: $0 crondir" >&2
   exit 1
fi

[karol@black ~]$ /usr/sbin/run-cron foobarbaz
Usage: /usr/sbin/run-cron crondir

Check if you have /etc/cron.hourly directory.

lolilolicon · 2011-09-20 03:17:14

The removal of /etc/cron.hourly/ is due to a bug[1] in pacman, which is fixed in pacman 4.0.
/etc/cron.hourly/ is part of the dcron package, so you can just reinstall dcron for now.

[1] https://bugs.archlinux.org/task/25141

karol · 2011-09-20 03:24:41

lolilolicon wrote:

The removal of /etc/cron.hourly/ is due to a bug[1] in pacman, which is fixed in pacman 4.0.
/etc/cron.hourly/ is part of the dcron package, so you can just reinstall dcron for now.
[1] https://bugs.archlinux.org/task/25141

Thanks a lot! I vaguely remembered there was an issue involving cron.hourly directory https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=123484
I have some hourly cron jobs so the directory is present on my system.

Arch Linux

#1 2011-09-19 16:37:08

Disable Hourly Cron Emails

#2 2011-09-19 16:51:00

Re: Disable Hourly Cron Emails

#3 2011-09-19 16:57:32

Re: Disable Hourly Cron Emails

#4 2011-09-19 16:59:55

Re: Disable Hourly Cron Emails

#5 2011-09-19 17:32:28

Re: Disable Hourly Cron Emails

#6 2011-09-19 17:36:06

Re: Disable Hourly Cron Emails

#7 2011-09-20 00:12:35

Re: Disable Hourly Cron Emails

#8 2011-09-20 03:17:14

Re: Disable Hourly Cron Emails

#9 2011-09-20 03:24:41

Re: Disable Hourly Cron Emails

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