fixlinux.com » cron http://fixlinux.com security + stability = sanity Thu, 27 May 2010 05:37:22 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.2 en hourly 1 Is this the Last Day of the Month? http://fixlinux.com/2006/04/12/is-this-the-last-day-of-the-month/ http://fixlinux.com/2006/04/12/is-this-the-last-day-of-the-month/#comments Wed, 12 Apr 2006 18:22:01 +0000 derek http://fixlinux.com/2006/04/12/is-this-the-last-day-of-the-month/ http://www.itworld.com/nl/unix_insider/04062006/

]]> http://fixlinux.com/2006/04/12/is-this-the-last-day-of-the-month/feed/ 0 The proper way to edit your crontab http://fixlinux.com/2005/12/22/the-proper-way-to-edit-your-crontab/ http://fixlinux.com/2005/12/22/the-proper-way-to-edit-your-crontab/#comments Thu, 22 Dec 2005 23:15:25 +0000 derek http://fixlinux.com/2005/12/22/the-proper-way-to-edit-your-crontab/ Time to break my habit of using crontab -e. As we all know this opens our default EDITOR and allows us to quickly edit and save our cron jobs. This is a huge risk. If, for example, you find yourself logged in on a strange system and EDITOR is set to something you don’t know, you’re much more at risk to accidentally erase your crontab.

The proper way to edit your crontab is as follows:

crontab -l > /tmp/mycrontab
vi /tmp/mycrontab
(make your changes)
crontab /tmp/mycrontab

Feel free to put the mycrontab file in your home directory (I just used /tmp as an example).

By following the above process you are creating a backup of your crontab and you have full control of the editor you will use to make your changes. You’ll thank me the next time you mistype and enter crontab -r (-r: Remove the current crontab) instead of the crontab -e you thought you typed.

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