Re: [debian-knoppix] crontab problem

["Cyril Chaboisseau" <Cyril.Chaboisseau@obs.coe.int>]

 January 29 at 19:29, Pacho Baratta wrote:
> who knows what's the problem with crontab?
> when i do "crontab -u pippo -e" firstly it says "file saved" but then "no
> changes to crontab".
> and if i try "crontab -l" it's empty

I had the same problem with a plain Debian (unstable)

the problem seems to be with vim that doesn't return the right value to
crontab which doesn't realize the file has changed

so then crontab just discard the change and doesn't install the new
version

one reason comes from the fact that there is a bug triggerred when /tmp
is  a symlink (to whatever directory somewhere else)

here is another explanation about the syscall fstat64 and the
interaction between crontab and vim :
http://www.uwsg.iu.edu/hypermail/linux/kernel/0110.3/0668.html


to circumvent this "bug" :

1) if you change the EDITOR value with another one (nvi, emacs,
whatever) it should work fine

2) just have /tmp as a real directory instead of a symlink (not easy
with knoppix but could be done with a real installation)

3) another way to have vim to work with crontab is to have the "set
compatible" option in /etc/vim/vimrc (or ~/.vimrc) instead of the Debian
default "set nocompatible"

this option could be set as default in knoppix (and maybe even in Debian
but that's just another story)


'hope this helps

-- 
Cyril Chaboisseau - tel +33 3 88 14 44 09 / fax +33 3 88 14 44 19
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