retarded maintenance scripts
 

I would love to know MT's findings on the new maint scripts.

I changed the crontab commands back to the old ones because I like to get the mail it sends out.
Gives me a bit of reassurance that the servers are running ok and I have even spotted and fixed some problems I spotted in the mail.
I have also added psync and rsync commands to /etc/daily.local to back up my system and mirror web pages to another machine.

I don't suppose you could detail what you did to get back to the old-style maint scripts could you. I too like getting the mail.

I used Webmin to edit the crontab but you could use CronniX or whatever other method to edit crontab.

I changed

back to

Another way to get the log mailed to you is leave the crontab as is and add a file called periodic.conf.local in your /etc directory.

Then add the following into the file:

daily_output="username"
weekly_output="username"
monthly_output="username"

Where username is your username. What this doesn't get you though is an email and output written to a file. If you want both go with jpkelly's suggestion.

enola, thanks.

seems that periodic could have scored a little better in the output flexibility dept.

perhaps some tee pipe fitting could be done somewheres to get the singular log back in /var/log and mail sent, e.g.,

daily_output="tee /var/log/daily.out root" # tee /file mailto:user

...
/usr/sbin/periodic...

case "$output" in
tee*) pipe= some crazy machinations to get tee stuffed before mail
/*) pipe="cat >>$output";;
"") pipe=cat;;
*) pipe="mail -s '$host ${arg##*/} run output' $output";;
esac
...


¡no me gusta!

I was thinking maybe that's what "") pipe=cat;; was intended for. To generate output to be piped to whatever the user wants. So if you set

daily_output =""

You could change your crontab to something like the old style entry:

periodic daily | tee /var/log/daily.out | mail -s "`hostname` daily output" username

I haven't actually tried this but looks like it should work.

yep. you're right. heh.

::keep it stupid, simple syndrome::

thank you for your support.

Am I understaning this correct....

/etc/periodic.conf.local

daily_output=""
weekly_output=""
monthly_output=""

---

/etc/crontab

periodic daily | tee /var/log/daily.out | mail -s "`hostname` daily output" root

roger. that looks copacetic.

This is the e-mail I got this morning - after the first run of daily - setup as described:

"No output from the 2 files processed"

Any ideas?

I just tried this in my cron and I got the expected results. A daily.out and an email.

Try running just from the command line:

sudo periodic daily

You should get output like what shows up in the log. I'd start there for troubleshooting.

hmm, works here. is there a /var/log/daily.out? if not, i suspect your crontab line, maybe. make sure the command doen't wrap, i.e., the command has to be all on one line.

Running in the CLI I get the same results:

> sudo periodic daily
> No output from the 2 files processed

/var/log/daily.out is empty

I noticed in the /periodic/* files they both start with:

if [ -r /etc/defaults/periodic.conf ]
then
. /etc/defaults/periodic.conf
source_periodic_confs
fi

Inside the /etc/defaults/periodic.conf file it shows that /etc/periodic.conf.local overides variables in /etc/defaults/. My /etc/periodic.conf/local contains nothing but this:

daily_output=""
weekly_output=""
monthly_output=""

I am not seeing where or how the mechanism works to create and send the output.

Do you have a /etc/defaults/periodic.conf file? There is a line in there for overriding the values:

So either two would work for overriding. Okay so let's take the periodic wrapper out of the picture. Just run the script by itself.

sudo /etc/daily

Do you get output? I just ran like this and get the normal output. Have you edited the daily script at all? Something is funky.

Trying that as we speak:

Just manually ran daily.local. Terminal shows a good output up to the locate.updatedb stuff. Then and error:

Updating the Locate db:
/usr/libexec/locate.updatedb: line 45: syntax error near unexpected token `setenv'
/usr/libexec/locate.updatedb: line 45: `if (! $?TMPDIR) setenv TMPDIR /var/tmp'

I remember reading there was a syntax error there and a solution - but for the life of me I can not locate that info now!

My /etc/periodic.conf/local ?

you mean /etc/periodic.conf.local ?

at the end of /etc/defaults/periodic.conf , a function is defined for slurping up the
/etc/periodic.conf.local file.

if you are out of rev on any of the vanilla periodic files, i suggest you get them back to vanilla and try again.

all periodic files should be vanilla, and you should create one file,

/etc/periodic.conf.local

containing daily_output=""

for now.

45 if (! $?TMPDIR) setenv TMPDIR /var/tmp

no syntax error here. are you talking about the term_program syntax error?

"There is a typo in /usr/share/tcsh/examples/aliases..."

http://www.macosxhints.com/article.p...20826003806202

different thing altogether.

are you running stock csh ? or have you managed to skronk that, too?

Okay, I take it by this that you've got a /etc/daily and a /etc/daily.local. Go with mT's advice and go back to a vanilla setup. Rename daily.local to something else so that it doesn't get called by /etc/daily and that things finish correctly.

got this in the mail today:
From daily output
Subject: crabtree daily run output

Removing scratch and junk files:
rm: ./Mount01: is a directory
rm: ./Mount02: is a directory
rm: ./Mount03: is a directory
rm: ./Mount04: is a directory
rm: ./zBooterMnt: is a directory

What does it mean?

Virgin install and everything seems to be working now. Got the e-mail and all. Thanks guys for the help.

FYI - I also see the:

Removing scratch and junk files:
rm: ./Mount01: is a directory
rm: ./Mount02: is a directory
rm: ./Mount03: is a directory
rm: ./Mount04: is a directory
rm: ./zBooterMnt: is a directory

"fsck it, drive on"

OK I already know the answer to this one. (man fsck)
How exactly does one fsck it?
Is there a fsck for dummies?

uh, you misinterpreted my meaning :D

rephrasing: eff it, drive on...

the "rm: ./Mount01: is a directory" errors are due to brain damage somewhere, but, since those dirs are empty, it's not very interesting.

there are some other problems with the daily cleaner code...
that first find causes the rm errors on dirs. and the second find is just plain wrong...

$ /usr/bin/find -fstype local -d .
stype: -d: unknown option

even reduction doesn't help...

$ /usr/bin/find -fstype local .
stype: stype: No such file or directory
stype: local: No such file or directory
.
./3d84c825109b0
...

since the objective of the second find is to rmdir, i think it should read...

$ /usr/bin/find . -fstype local -type d ! -name . # and so on...
./mds
./Mount01
./Mount02
./Mount03
./Mount04
./vi.recover
./zBooterMnt

but, i'll just let her buck...

hmm, after looking at the tmp cleaner code, i thought that it is all brain damaged, so i hacked on it...
i think that might begin to start to approach ever closer to almost the right thing.

if you mod your daily script, be sure to save the original distribution...

$ sudo cp -p /etc/periodic/daily/500.daily /etc/periodic/daily/500.daily.10.2.dist

well that seemed to get rid of the offending dirs...
I had considered changing the 'rm -f' part to 'rm -rf' but that probably would not have been a good idea.