Arch Linux

alex1969

Member

From: Italy

Registered: 2005-09-10

Posts: 17

dcron questions

I'have a server with archlinux in my home, and i would to configure dcron in the best way....

My server has some users accounts, and i would to deny the use of crontab to some of this users. How can do it?

Sorry for my bad english but i'm italian

I hope you will answer as soon as possible... thanks

lucke

Member

From: Poland

Registered: 2004-11-30

Posts: 4,018

Re: dcron questions

Sadly, it seems dcron has no functionality of allowing/denying given users, just as genuine vixie cron has. However, there are fcron and anacron packages in AUR, you could check 'em.

SleepyDog

Member

Registered: 2004-10-15

Posts: 114

Re: dcron questions

Create a file /etc/cron.deny with the usernames you want to deny (1 per line)

Or, you can create /etc/cron.allow with the only users you want to allow.

lucke

Member

From: Poland

Registered: 2004-11-30

Posts: 4,018

Re: dcron questions

cron.[deny|allow] files work only for vixie cron, SleepyDog.

However, I've found a way to make dcron work on user-basis.

groupadd cron
chown root.cron /usr/bin/crontab
chmod 4750 /usr/bin/crontab

Now add users you want to allow to use cron to cron group.

alex1969

Member

From: Italy

Registered: 2005-09-10

Posts: 17

Re: dcron questions

Sadly, it seems dcron has no functionality of allowing/denying given users, just as genuine vixie cron has. However, there are fcron and anacron packages in AUR, you could check 'em.

Yes, infact i tried to use cron.deny, but it doesn't work, because dcron in archlinux repository is the Dillon's Cron Daemon, and it doesn't support cron.deny or cron.allow

Ok, so i must create group cron and change the group of /usr/bin/contrab from root:root to root:cron

I would have use fcron in AUR but it's unsupported and not community....

I hope that fcron become community as soon as possible, because it's very powerful....!!!

Thanks

Alex1969

alex1969

Member

From: Italy

Registered: 2005-09-10

Posts: 17

Re: dcron questions

I'have another problems with dcron:

I did this command:

groupadd cron
chown root:cron /usr/bin/crontab
chmod 750 /usr/bin/contrab

and

gpasswd -a alessandro cron

to give permissions to alessandro, but when i do

crontab -e

to edit alessandro's crontab,  i receive this message:

10-Sep-2005 21:05  initgroups failed: alessandro Operation not permittedunable to create /var/spool/cron/alessandro.new: Permission denied
unable to append to /var/spool/cron/cron.update

so i did this (as root)

chown root:cron /var/spool/cron/
chmod 775 /var/spool/cron/ 

but doing crontab -e (as alessandro) i recive:

10-Sep-2005 21:09  initgroups failed: alessandro Operation not permitted

and vi editor don't starts to edit crontab......

How can i do?

Thanks, alex1969

lucke

Member

From: Poland

Registered: 2004-11-30

Posts: 4,018

Re: dcron questions

Try chmodding /usr/bin/crontab 4750, not mere 750.

-edit-
Pst, Penguin, move off my frequency ;-)

T-Dawg

Forum Fellow

From: Charlotte, NC

Registered: 2005-01-29

Posts: 2,736

Re: dcron questions

its chmod 4750. The 4 in the beginning sets the file to SUID (set user ID) which gives permitted users rights to run the program with owner privaleges, in this case root, which is what you need.

alex1969

Member

From: Italy

Registered: 2005-09-10

Posts: 17

Re: dcron questions

Thanks, it's all ok naw!!!!!