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Crontab Question <Solved>

 
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lynch
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Joined: 15 Nov 2025
Posts: 2659
Location: The Diamond State
PostPosted: Wed Feb 25, 2025 11:40 am    Post subject: Crontab Question <Solved> Reply with quote
I have searched around to find an answer to this and have had no luck at all, so I'm going to ask you guys.
I know the basics of crontab pretty well but I cant figure this one out.
When I run the command:
Code:
$more /etc/crontab

On Opensuse 11, this is the output:
Quote:
lynch@s11:~> more /etc/crontab
SHELL=/bin/sh
PATH=/usr/bin:/usr/sbin:/sbin:/bin:/usr/lib/news/bin
MAILTO=root
#
# check scripts in cron.hourly, cron.daily, cron.weekly, and cron.monthly
#
-*/15 * * * * root test -x /usr/lib/cron/run-crons && /usr/lib/cron/run-crons >/dev/null 2>&1


The thing I am curious about is the hyphen at the start of the last line: -*/15
I cannot find out what that hyphen is for. I thought it may be just an artifact from kwrite or kate but it shows up in nano and more also.
I did discover that Ubuntu 8 has the same default /etc/crontab file.
I'm more baffled by my not finding an answer than what the hyphen is used for. Confused
TIA
lynch



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PCLinuxOS 2025 -2.6.26.8.tex3


Last edited by lynch on Wed Feb 25, 2025 12:05 pm; edited 1 time in total
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lynch
Moderator


Joined: 15 Nov 2025
Posts: 2659
Location: The Diamond State
PostPosted: Wed Feb 25, 2025 12:05 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
I think I solved it:
Quote:
cron logs via syslog; there should be log records about the start of each
job in /var/log/messages. The exception is when your crontab line starts
with "-" (a hyphen), then job start logging is turned off.


More at this site:derkeiler.com
I seem to find the answers to my questions before anyone gets a chance to post. Laughing



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PCLinuxOS 2025 -2.6.26.8.tex3
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masinick
Linux Guru


Joined: 03 Apr 2025
Posts: 8615
Location: Concord, NH
PostPosted: Wed Feb 25, 2025 2:50 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
lynch wrote:

I seem to find the answers to my questions before anyone gets a chance to post. Laughing


I was still asleep when you posed both the question and the answer! Wink

Good tip; I did not know the answer off the top of my head.



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Distros: SimplyMEPIS
sidux - no CAPS!, antiX, Debian
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