Xenix 2.2.2 cron/crontab not working

[Ross Oliver]

In article <219 at ISIDAPS5.UUCP> mike at ISIDAPS5.UUCP (Mike Maloney) writes:
=Has anyone else had problems getting the Xenix 2.2.2 (I'm running on
=a NEC Powermate 386) crontab to work?  My situation is as follows:
=
=1. I loaded the following commands via the crontab command:
=	31 9 * * * echo "Doing expire..." | mail super
=	32 9 * * * (/usr/lib/news/expire -p; echo "expire done" | mail super)
=
=2. /usr/lib/cron/cron.allow does not exist.
=3. /usr/lib/cron/cron.deny exists but is empty.
=4. cron is indeed running.  I see it on the 'ps'.
=
=At 9:31 AM every morning 'super' should get mail that says "Doing expire...".
=At 9:32 the expire program should run and then I get more mail.  Right??
=I get nothing.  I have to run expire by hand.  Frequently the disk fills up
=on weekends.  


We're still trying to track this one down.  A workaround is to add the
following entry to your crontab file:

0  0,6,12,18  *  *  *  /bin/true

Giving cron something to do at least every 6 hours seems to cure the problem.


Ross Oliver
Technical Support
The Santa Cruz Operation, Inc.
uunet!sco!rosso