According to /etc/crontab, in order for cron.daily, cron.weekly etc to work, you must run "crontab /etc/crontab" as root. Conversely, the system-crontab USE flag claims that the above will work regardless and only /etc/cron.d and /etc/crontab require special attention
This one confused me, too. Together with #467316 the documentation is pretty misleading for a first time user of fcron. I was using fcron for a long time before I figured that it is best for me to either activate 'system-crontab' or run /usr/libexec/check_system_crontabs -f -i once -- basically they have the same effect. And from that point on * /etc/crontab * /etc/cron.d/ and * /etc/cron.{hourly,daily,weekly,monthly} work just fine. You can do "crontab /etc/crontab", but then only * /etc/cron.{hourly,daily,weekly,monthly} will work. I think both bugs (this one and #467316) reference the same problem: Inaccurate/misleading documentation. I think "/etc/crontab" should be reworked with a preface like this, because it might be one of the first texts someone familiar with other cron daemons reads when configuring fcron: # fcron: # It is *not* a built-in feature of fcron to execute cronjobs configured in # /etc/crontab, # /etc/cron.d or # /etc/cron.{hourly|daily|weekly|montly} # The contents of /etc/crontab and such have to be run by an explicitly # configured cronjob. # # You can add the contents of /etc/crontab once to the crontab of root by # running # "crontab -u root /etc/crontab" # or the system's crontab by running # "crontab -u systab /etc/crontab" # "/etc/crontab" in its unmodified state enables the use of # "/etc/cron.{hourly|daily|weekly|montly}". Any changes to "/etc/crontab" # afterwards will not be noticed by fcron. # # Ideally, run this once as: # "# /usr/libexec/check_system_crontabs -f -i" # This enables the use of # /etc/crontab, # /etc/cron.d and # /etc/cron.{hourly|daily|weekly|montly} # This way all locations are checked regularly (every 10 minutes). You should # not directly modifiy "systab" afterwards. Instead change "/etc/crontab" which # changes gets included into the "systab" every 10 minutes.
Sorry, accidentally pressed "submit" while editing the last paragraph: # Ideally, run this once as root: # "/usr/libexec/check_system_crontabs -f -i" # This enables the use of # /etc/crontab, # /etc/cron.d and # /etc/cron.{hourly|daily|weekly|montly} # This way all locations are checked regularly (every 10 minutes). You should # not directly modifiy "systab" afterwards. Instead change "/etc/crontab" which # changes gets included into the "systab" every 10 minutes.
Thanks for the report. This is now fixed: https://gitweb.gentoo.org/repo/gentoo.git/commit/?id=531e27c45e1f413da44d8a51ece0f59e454586fb
