impossible values in /etc/crontab due to randomization
Hi. I just realized that some of my /etc/crontab are set with impossible numbers for the hour field. 9 30 * * * root rm -f /var/spool/cron/lastrun/cron.daily This seams to only appear on gentoo template and not debian/ubuntu for exemple. This is the /etc/crontab from gentoo # for vixie cron # $Header: /var/cvsroot/gentoo-x86/sys-process/vixie-cron/files/crontab-3.0.1-r4,v 1.2 2009/05/12 09:13:46 bangert Exp $ # Global variables SHELL=/bin/bash PATH=/sbin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin MAILTO=root HOME=/ # check scripts in cron.hourly, cron.daily, cron.weekly and cron.monthly 3 * * * * root rm -f /var/spool/cron/lastrun/cron.hourly 16 9 * * * root rm -f /var/spool/cron/lastrun/cron.daily 51 3 * * 6 root rm -f /var/spool/cron/lastrun/cron.weekly 32 3 1 * * root rm -f /var/spool/cron/lastrun/cron.monthly */10 * * * * root test -x /usr/sbin/run-crons && /usr/sbin/run-crons And this is the part of the openvz script that set random times for cron. cat crontab | awk ' BEGIN { srand(); } { if ($0 ~ /^[ \t]*#/ || $0 ~ /^[ \t]+*$/) { print $0; next; } if ((n = split($0, ar, /[ \t]/)) < 7) { print $0; next; } # min if (ar[1] ~ /^[0-9]+$/) { ar[1] = int(rand() * 59); } else if (ar[1] ~/^-\*\/[0-9]+$/) { r = int(rand() * 40) + 15; ar[1] = "-*/" r; } # hour if (ar[2] ~ /^[0-9]+$/) { ar[2] = int(rand() * 6); } # day if (ar[3] ~ /^[0-9]+$/) { ar[3] = int(rand() * 31) + 1; } line = ar[1]; for (i = 2; i <= n; i++) { line = line " " ar[i]; } print line; }' If you test it less than 10 times you will see an impossible value for the hour field. If someone as a solution for this problem it would be great.