Package: cron
Version: 3.0pl1-116
Severity: important
RUN-PARTS(8) advises: "If neither the --lsbsysinit option nor the --regex
option is given then the names must consist entirely of upper and lower case
letters, digits, underscores, and hyphens."
This means that the currently used calls to run-parts in /etc/crontab for
/etc/cron.{daily,weekly,monthly} will skip any files found in the directories
that include a file extension, e.g. .sh, .py etc.
Historic bugs related include http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-
bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=68561 and http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-
bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=308911 (where the default regex for run-parts was
attempted to be changed). There are likely other historic/archived bugs too on
this usability issue.
There is also a wontfix downstream with Ubuntu,
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/debianutils/+bug/38022
Typical example of users going insane wondering why their script is not being
called by cron.daily:
http://www.reddit.com/r/raldi/comments/i8z20/frustrating_unix_pitfall_of_the_day_esoteric_cron/
My proposal is to change /etc/crontab to call {daily,weekly,monthly} with
--regex for all valid filenames, e.g.
25 6 * * * root test -x /usr/sbin/anacron || ( cd / && run-parts
--regex "[^/?*:;{}\\]+" --report /etc/cron.daily
The regex above is just an example, there is likely a better expression for a
valid filename.
The above can be tested manually by placing a script that is executable into
/etc/cron.daily such as hellow_world.sh and running sudo run-parts --regex
"[^/?*:;{}\\]+" --verbose --list /etc/cron.daily which will list the scripts
to run, but does not run them.
-- Package-specific info:
--- EDITOR:
not set
--- usr/bin/editor:
/usr/bin/joe
--- /usr/bin/crontab:
-rwxr-sr-x 1 root crontab 35040 Dec 19 2010 /usr/bin/crontab
--- /var/spool/cron
drwxr-xr-x 5 root root 4096 Feb 7 12:57 /var/spool/cron
--- /var/spool/cron/crontabs
drwx-wx--T 2 root crontab 4096 Dec 19 2010 /var/spool/cron/crontabs
-- System Information:
Debian Release: 6.0
APT prefers stable
APT policy: (500, 'stable')
Architecture: amd64 (x86_64)
Kernel: Linux 2.6.32-5-amd64 (SMP w/1 CPU core)
Locale: LANG=en_AU.UTF-8, LC_CTYPE=en_AU.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8)
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/dash
Versions of packages cron depends on:
ii adduser 3.112+nmu2 add and remove users and groups
ii debianutils 3.4 Miscellaneous utilities specific t
ii dpkg 1.15.8.10 Debian package management system
ii libc6 2.11.2-10 Embedded GNU C Library: Shared lib
ii libpam-runtime 1.1.1-6.1 Runtime support for the PAM librar
ii libpam0g 1.1.1-6.1 Pluggable Authentication Modules l
ii libselinux1 2.0.96-1 SELinux runtime shared libraries
ii lsb-base 3.2-23.2squeeze1 Linux Standard Base 3.2 init scrip
Versions of packages cron recommends:
ii exim4 4.72-6 metapackage to ease Exim MTA (v4)
ii exim4-daemon-light [mail-tran 4.72-6 lightweight Exim MTA (v4) daemon
ii lockfile-progs 0.1.15 Programs for locking and unlocking
Versions of packages cron suggests:
ii anacron 2.3-14 cron-like program that doesn't go
pn checksecurity <none> (no description available)
ii logrotate 3.7.8-6 Log rotation utility
Versions of packages cron is related to:
pn libnss-ldap <none> (no description available)
pn libnss-ldapd <none> (no description available)
pn libpam-ldap <none> (no description available)
pn libpam-mount <none> (no description available)
pn nis <none> (no description available)
pn nscd <none> (no description available)
-- no debconf information
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