Below is the e-mail I send to the developer at fcron@free.fr ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Dear Sir, I found a wrong behavior in fcron. I have problems with crontabs for users which have dots in their usernames. For instance I have a user "alexey.koshelev" and its cron tab just not read AT ALL. I found the reason: lines 109-110 of conf.c say __________________________________________________________ else if (strchr(den->d_name, '.') != NULL) continue; __________________________________________________________ meaning that you just SKIP files in fcron spool dir if filenames contain a dot. Then I have: __________________________________________________________ kas@phantom ~/fcron-3.1.1 $ sudo /usr/libexec/fcron -fd 2013-02-04 11:55:43 DEBUG fcronconf=/etc/fcron/fcron.conf 2013-02-04 11:55:43 INFO fcron[3642] 3.1.1 started 2013-02-04 11:55:43 DEBUG Socket initialized : listen_fd : 5 set_max_fd : 5 2013-02-04 11:55:43 DEBUG Entering main loop 2013-02-04 11:55:43 INFO @reboot jobs will only be run at computer's startup. 2013-02-04 11:55:43 INFO updating configuration from /var/spool/fcron 2013-02-04 11:55:43 INFO adding file systab 2013-02-04 11:55:43 DEBUG User systab Entry 2013-02-04 11:55:43 DEBUG cmd /etc/cron.daily/prelink next exec 2/5/2013 wday:2 06:00:00 (system time) 2013-02-04 11:55:43 DEBUG cmd /etc/cron.daily/mlocate next exec 2/5/2013 wday:2 06:00:00 (system time) 2013-02-04 11:55:43 DEBUG cmd /etc/cron.daily/makewhatis next exec 2/5/2013 wday:2 06:00:00 (system time) 2013-02-04 11:55:43 DEBUG cmd /etc/cron.daily/logrotate.cron next exec 2/5/2013 wday:2 06:00:00 (system time) 2013-02-04 11:55:43 DEBUG cmd /etc/cron.weekly/eix-sync next exec 2/10/2013 wday:0 18:00:00 (system time) 2013-02-04 11:55:43 DEBUG cmd /etc/cron.hourly/psd-resync next exec 2/4/2013 wday:1 11:58:44 (system time) 2013-02-04 11:55:43 INFO adding file alex-kas 2013-02-04 11:55:43 DEBUG User alex-kas Entry 2013-02-04 11:55:43 DEBUG cmd /home/shared/cron/mail-sync next exec 2/4/2013 wday:1 20:00:00 (system time) 2013-02-04 11:55:43 DEBUG initial sleep time : 181 ^Ckas@phantom ~/fcron-3.1.1 $ sudo fcrontab -u alexey.koshelev -l 2013-02-04 11:56:02 INFO listing alexey.koshelev's fcrontab ## SHELL=/bin/bash # # Global options # !mail(true),mailto(kas),forcemail(true),noticenotrun(true),bootrun(true),nolog(false) # # Daily jobs # & 15 08,20 * * * /home/shared/cron/mail-sync # # Weekly jobs # # # Hourly jobs # kas@phantom ~/fcron-3.1.1 $ sudo ls -al /var/spool/fcron total 32 drwsrws--- 2 fcron fcron 4096 февр. 4 11:12 . drwxr-xr-x 7 root root 4096 мая 21 2012 .. -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 0 янв. 28 00:11 .keep_sys-process_fcron-0 -rw------- 1 root root 148 февр. 4 11:12 alex-kas -rw-r----- 1 fcron fcron 224 февр. 1 10:16 alex-kas.orig -rw------- 1 root root 162 февр. 4 01:43 alexey.koshelev -rw-r----- 1 fcron fcron 224 февр. 4 00:46 alexey.koshelev.orig -rw------- 1 root root 666 февр. 4 11:12 systab -rw------- 1 root fcron 469 нояб. 19 16:36 systab.orig kas@phantom ~/fcron-3.1.1 $ __________________________________________________________ You see from this sequence of outputs that the crontab for "alexey.koshelev" does not come up at fcron start BUT the crontab for "alexey.koshelev" exists I believe this must be fixed somehow. I understand that you wanted to make the dot "." as an indicator of the "*.orig" files. I also understand that allowing dot "." you will have to create some other distinguishing feature for the ORIGINAL crontabs. Let say, allowing the dot may cause problems if come username is "funny.orig". BUT, since usernames with dots are legitimate some solution for this should be. To be clear, I extremely need this. I cannot prevent users having dot "." in their usernames. I would be happy to have any idea about this implemented. I also will try myself to figure out the problem. May be, I'll find something. Thanks in advance, With best regards, Alex
Reopen if upstream releases a new version or you have a patch.