Package: anacron Version: 2.3-43 Severity: normal X-Debbugs-Cc: [email protected]
Dear Maintainer, The other day I made a change to a script that broke it but I decided to fix it later. Much to my surprise I noticed next week that journal was flooded with hourly errors from anacron! Nov 13 07:32:59 host anacron[1606932]: /etc/anacrontab: Unknown named period on line 13, skipping Nov 13 07:37:59 host anacron[1606932]: Can't find sendmail at /usr/bin/sendmail, not mailing output Nov 13 08:31:45 host anacron[1607068]: /etc/anacrontab: Unknown named period on line 13, skipping Nov 13 08:31:45 host anacron[1607068]: Can't find sendmail at /usr/bin/sendmail, not mailing output Nov 13 09:33:15 host anacron[1607245]: /etc/anacrontab: Unknown named period on line 13, skipping Nov 13 09:33:15 host anacron[1607245]: Can't find sendmail at /usr/bin/sendmail, not mailing output Nov 13 10:32:15 host anacron[1607501]: /etc/anacrontab: Unknown named period on line 13, skipping Nov 13 10:32:15 host anacron[1607501]: Can't find sendmail at /usr/bin/sendmail, not mailing output Nov 13 11:34:05 host anacron[1607662]: /etc/anacrontab: Unknown named period on line 13, skipping Nov 13 11:34:05 host anacron[1607662]: Can't find sendmail at /usr/bin/sendmail, not mailing output Nov 13 12:34:55 host anacron[1607893]: /etc/anacrontab: Unknown named period on line 13, skipping Nov 13 12:34:55 host anacron[1607893]: Can't find sendmail at /usr/bin/sendmail, not mailing output Nov 13 13:34:00 host anacron[1608052]: /etc/anacrontab: Unknown named period on line 13, skipping Nov 13 13:34:00 host anacron[1608052]: Can't find sendmail at /usr/bin/sendmail, not mailing output Nov 13 14:34:03 host anacron[1608198]: /etc/anacrontab: Unknown named period on line 13, skipping Nov 13 14:34:03 host anacron[1608198]: Can't find sendmail at /usr/bin/sendmail, not mailing output Nov 13 15:32:15 host anacron[1608439]: /etc/anacrontab: Unknown named period on line 13, skipping Nov 13 15:32:15 host anacron[1608439]: Can't find sendmail at /usr/bin/sendmail, not mailing output Nov 13 16:32:56 host anacron[1608607]: /etc/anacrontab: Unknown named period on line 13, skipping Nov 13 16:32:56 host anacron[1608607]: Can't find sendmail at /usr/bin/sendmail, not mailing output Nov 13 17:33:15 host anacron[1608769]: /etc/anacrontab: Unknown named period on line 13, skipping Nov 13 17:33:15 host anacron[1608769]: Can't find sendmail at /usr/bin/sendmail, not mailing output Nov 13 18:33:15 host anacron[1608941]: /etc/anacrontab: Unknown named period on line 13, skipping Nov 13 18:33:15 host anacron[1608941]: Can't find sendmail at /usr/bin/sendmail, not mailing output Nov 13 19:30:34 host anacron[1609090]: /etc/anacrontab: Unknown named period on line 13, skipping Nov 13 19:30:34 host anacron[1609090]: Can't find sendmail at /usr/bin/sendmail, not mailing output Nov 13 20:33:07 host anacron[1609232]: /etc/anacrontab: Unknown named period on line 13, skipping Nov 13 20:33:07 host anacron[1609232]: Can't find sendmail at /usr/bin/sendmail, not mailing output Nov 13 21:31:02 host anacron[1609414]: /etc/anacrontab: Unknown named period on line 13, skipping Nov 13 21:31:02 host anacron[1609414]: Can't find sendmail at /usr/bin/sendmail, not mailing output Nov 13 22:31:34 host anacron[1609579]: /etc/anacrontab: Unknown named period on line 13, skipping Nov 13 22:31:34 host anacron[1609579]: Can't find sendmail at /usr/bin/sendmail, not mailing output Nov 13 23:32:07 host anacron[1609725]: /etc/anacrontab: Unknown named period on line 13, skipping Nov 13 23:32:07 host anacron[1609725]: Can't find sendmail at /usr/bin/sendmail, not mailing output That's just one day. Look at the whole week: $ journalctl --identifier=anacron --since=-1week --priority=err | wc --lines 230 It took me a while to figure out what was going on. Turns out the script was used in one of my @weekly anacrontab commands. Anacron tries to mail output because my script failed. I still don't know what that unknown named period message is about. The big issue is that anacron can't detect if a script changed after it was added as a job. Please add this feature to at least make the error messages more clear. Thanks, Henri -- System Information: Debian Release: 13.1 APT prefers stable-updates APT policy: (500, 'stable-updates'), (500, 'stable-security'), (500, 'stable') Architecture: amd64 (x86_64) Kernel: Linux 6.12.48+deb13-amd64 (SMP w/2 CPU threads; PREEMPT) Locale: LANG=en_GB.UTF-8, LC_CTYPE=en_GB.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8), LANGUAGE=en_GB:en Shell: /bin/sh linked to /usr/bin/dash Init: systemd (via /run/systemd/system) LSM: AppArmor: enabled Versions of packages anacron depends on: ii libc6 2.41-12 Versions of packages anacron recommends: ii cron [cron-daemon] 3.0pl1-197 Versions of packages anacron suggests: pn default-mta | mail-transport-agent <none> pn powermgmt-base <none> ii rsyslog [system-log-daemon] 8.2504.0-1 -- Configuration Files: /etc/anacrontab changed [not included] -- no debconf information
