crontab command and permissions problem

[Jordi Moles Blanco <jordi@cdmon.com>]

Hi,

I'm having a problem trying to execute the "crontab" command from a perl 
script. I'm writing to this list cause the same set up works in another 
distro. Now i'm moving to Debian for convenience, but I'm having this 
problem i can't fix.

The thing is... I'm using SNMP to automatize some processes on the 
server, for example, to create a system user remotely. The script that 
handles the creation of the user and so on is written in perl. The thing 
is that, this way, i can create users, delete them and access absolutely 
path in the server, cause... after all it is executed as root.

However, i'm facing only one problem with all the automated calls i've 
had... i can't use "crontab". When i call this command from the SNMP 
system, i get this:

"must be privileged to use -u"

the procedure is...

1. i create a cron file for a particular user in 
/var/spool/cron/crontabs/username
2. i run "crontab -u username /var/spool/cron/crontabs/username"

I've tried to create the cron file, somewhere else, or to give it 777 
permissions, but i always get the same error message.
I've even tried to log a "whoami" command before it executes "crontab", 
and it says it's root, but then it says it is not allowed to execute the 
command.

I've also tried to create the /etc/cron.allow file and many other things 
i've found on several posts, but none has worked.

Could some tell me how to fix this or if there's another way to do same 
thing?

Basically, i want to create a per-user crontab file. is there any other 
way to do it a part from using "crontab" command?

Thanks.