Cron 101: Cron message "/bin/sh: root: command not found"

[Ron Leach <ronleach@tesco.net>]

List good morning,

I do regret asking such a basic question about cron, but I cannot seem 
to get rid of what I think is a mis-configured entry, somewhere.

We have a server running Lenny (still), its role is solely to provide 
a network file system.  Every 17 mins past the hour, root is sending 
an email with this title:

Cron <root@server4> root cd / && run-parts --report /etc/cron.hourly

and content:

/bin/sh: root: command not found

In /etc/cron.d there are only files for anacron and mdadm; neither of 
these have entries for every 17 mins past the hour.

In /etc/cron.hourly there is only an empty .placeholder file.

I've tried commenting out relevant entries in /etc/crontab, but 
without effect.  /etc/crontab contains:

# was executing 'root' so commented out; still error messages
# 17 *  * * *     cd / && run-parts --report /etc/cron.hourly

and, as a last resort a couple of days ago:

# disabled because of multiple error messages in email but no effect
# 17 *  * * *   root    cd / && run-parts --report /etc/cron.hourly

Hourly email messages still occur.  I would guess this second crontab 
entry was - in practice - ok, and perhaps I should re-enable it for 
system purposes, anyway.

I checked /etc/anacrontab in case it could be involved, it seems not 
to contain any cron.hourly entries, nor entries at the relevant time:

SHELL=/bin/sh
PATH=/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/sbin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin

# These replace cron's entries
1       5       cron.daily       nice run-parts --report /etc/cron.daily
7       10      cron.weekly      nice run-parts --report /etc/cron.weekly
@monthly        15      cron.monthly nice run-parts --report 
/etc/cron.monthly


I'm missing some aspect of cron configuration, or perhaps some other 
cron file somewhere.  root doesn't have a /home directory, so there 
isn't a crontab in it, and the only user existing on the system 
doesn't have a crontab in its home directory, either.

I enjoy mysteries.  This one is beginning to frustrate, though.  I've 
misunderstood something about cron, but what is it?

regards, Ron