Re: odd cron returns

["Gregory T. Norris" <haphazard@socket.net>]

I've read somewhere that you can't use $HOME in a crontab entry,
although I haven't personally verified this.  Try filling in the full
path...

On Fri, Feb 04, 2000 at 10:40:06AM -0600, hawk@hawkins.cba.uni.edu wrote:
> 
> I have the crontab file "mycron" with the contents
> 
> ch1quiz@hawkins:~$ crontab -l
> 1,11,21,31,41,51 * * * *  /usr/local/bin/updatehw >> $HOME/tmp.quizlog
> 
> 
> which results in the crontab entry of
> 
> # DO NOT EDIT THIS FILE - edit the master and reinstall.
> # (/tmp/crontab.XXXX4hHwFM installed on Tue Feb  1 11:36:48 2000)
> # (Cron version -- $Id: crontab.c,v 2.13 1994/01/17 03:20:37 vixie Exp $)
> 1,11,21,31,41,51 * * * *  /usr/local/bin/updatehw >> $HOME/tmp.quizlog
> # DO NOT EDIT THIS FILE - edit the master and reinstall.
> # (/tmp/crontab.XXXX4hHwFM installed on Tue Feb  1 11:36:48 2000)
> # (Cron version -- $Id: crontab.c,v 2.13 1994/01/17 03:20:37 vixie Exp $)
> 1,11,21,31,41,51 * * * *  /usr/local/bin/updatehw >> $HOME/tmp.quizlog
> 
> However, the mail gets inundated with reports of
> 
> Delivery-Date: Fri Feb  4 10:30:01 2000
> Return-Path: <ch1quiz>
> X-Cron-Env: <SHELL=/bin/sh>
> X-Cron-Env: <PATH=/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/sbin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin>
> X-Cron-Env: <HOME=/home/ch1quiz>
> X-Cron-Env: <LOGNAME=ch1quiz>
> 
> /bin/sh: -c: line 1: syntax error near unexpected token `&'
> 
> 
> 
> That is, it's not executingthe command in the crontab, but a differetn one 
> --note thatthe >> becomes a 2>>&  
> 
> How do I fix this?   What I need here is for cron to *not* send any
> mail at all--this account exists to sort and process mail, and 
> extra mail makes the job harder.
> 
> Rick