Bug 42250 – fcron crashes on normal user 'fcrontab -e' update

• Status: RESOLVED FIXED
• Product: Gentoo Linux

[Description Niels Laukens 2004-02-20 07:27:53 UTC]

when a normal user (i.e. non-root) updates his/her cron-file with 'fcrontab -e', fcron just stops without any warning/error printed to the syslog.

Reproducible: Always
Steps to Reproduce:
1. (as normal user) fcrontab -e
2. save the changes
3. fcron will be updates at (time in 1 minute)
4. (as root): ps aux | grep fcron
Actual Results:  
you see that fcron terminates at the given time

Expected Results:  
fcron should continue and update.

----- fcron.conf -----
# The spool directory where fcron stores its files
fcrontabs       =       /var/spool/cron/fcrontabs

# The location of the pidfile
pidfile         =       /var/run/fcron.pid

# allow/deny files to determine which users are allowed to use fcrontab
fcronallow      =       /etc/fcron/fcron.allow
fcrondeny       =       /etc/fcron/fcron.deny

# Location of the programs used by fcron
shell           =       /bin/sh
sendmail        =       /usr/sbin/sendmail

# Location of the default editor for "fcrontab -e"
editor          =       /usr/bin/vim



----- emerge info -----
Portage 2.0.50-r1 (default-x86-1.4, gcc-3.3.2, glibc-2.3.2-r9,
2.4.22-gentoo-r5-genie-6)
=================================================================
System uname: 2.4.22-gentoo-r5-genie-6 i686 Pentium III (Katmai)
Gentoo Base System version 1.4.3.13
Autoconf: sys-devel/autoconf-2.58
Automake: sys-devel/automake-1.7.7
ACCEPT_KEYWORDS="x86"
AUTOCLEAN="yes"
CFLAGS="-O3 -mcpu=pentium3 -funroll-loops -pipe"
CHOST="i686-pc-linux-gnu"
COMPILER="gcc3"
CONFIG_PROTECT="/etc /usr/kde/2/share/config /usr/kde/3/share/config
/usr/share/config /var/bind /var/qmail/control"
CONFIG_PROTECT_MASK="/etc/gconf /etc/env.d"
CXXFLAGS="-O3 -mcpu=pentium3 -funroll-loops -pipe"
DISTDIR="/usr/portage/distfiles"
FEATURES="autoaddcvs ccache sandbox"
GENTOO_MIRRORS="http://ftp.belnet.be/mirror/rsync.gentoo.org/gentoo/
ftp://ftp.belnet.be/mirror/rsync.gentoo.org/gentoo/"
MAKEOPTS="-j2"
PKGDIR="/usr/portage/packages"
PORTAGE_TMPDIR="/var/tmp"
PORTDIR="/usr/portage"
PORTDIR_OVERLAY=""
SYNC="rsync://rsync.gentoo.org/gentoo-portage"
USE="acpi apache2 apm berkdb crypt cups encode foomaticdb gdbm gif gpm gtk2 imap
imlib jpeg ldap libg++ libwww mad maildir mikmod mmx motif mpeg ncurses nls
oggvorbis pam pdflib perl png ppds python quicktime readline samba sasl sdl
slang spell sse ssl svga tcpd truetype usb x86 xml2 xmms zlib"

[Comment 1 Niels Laukens 2004-02-25 10:05:56 UTC]

I just remerged (no update) fcron, and I can't reproduce it anymore.....

[Comment 2 Niels Laukens 2004-02-28 02:23:25 UTC]

The problem re-occured... ignore that last comment

[Comment 3 Aaron Walker (RETIRED) 2004-09-26 16:14:53 UTC]

Are you still having this problem?  Also, you never specify what version of fcron you were getting this with.

[Comment 4 Mark Dierolf (RETIRED) 2004-10-06 12:07:40 UTC]

This doesn't happen for me. Does fcron print any messages to the logs?

[Comment 5 Niels Laukens 2004-10-07 11:01:05 UTC]

Ok, I currenly have fcron 2.0.0-r4.
If I edit the file, I get the message "fcrontab[21329]: fcrontab : editing niels's fcrontab" logged in the syslog

I see that fcron starts an extra process "/usr/bin/fcronsighup /etc/fcron/fcron.conf"

Then, (after the minute has passed) fcron sudenly dies without printing anything at all to the logs.

I'm trying to reproduce it right now, but it won't work... Apparently fcron needs to be running for a while to behave.

Sorry about the unclear reports; If I can do anything more, I'll check!

[Comment 6 Aaron Walker (RETIRED) 2004-11-20 11:58:09 UTC]

Niels, any update on this with the latest stable version (2.0.2)?

If not (or you dont respond), I'll be closing this.

[Comment 7 Niels Laukens 2004-11-22 10:16:03 UTC]

ok, I can't reproduce it anymore; so switchting to RESOLVED
thx!