crontab only executes partly

[Styrsven]

Some time ago I reinstalled FreeBSD on my pc after a shorter session with gentoo.
After some time I started noticing that my periodic scripts didn't run as expected.
Running periodic as root from the prompt works.
/var/log/cron shows that save-entropy and newsyslog runs as expected, but periodic and adjkerntz does not.

My crontab looks like this:
# /etc/crontab - system crontab for FreeBSD
#
#
SHELL=/bin/sh
PATH=/sbin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin
#
#minute hour mday month wday who command
#
# Save some entropy so that /dev/random can re-seed on boot.
*/11 * * * * operator /usr/libexec/save-entropy
#
# Rotate log files every hour, if necessary.
0 * * * * root newsyslog
#
# Perform daily/weekly/monthly maintenance.
1 3 * * * root periodic daily
15 4 * * 6 root periodic weekly
30 5 1 * * root periodic monthly
#
# Adjust the time zone if the CMOS clock keeps local time, as opposed to
# UTC time. See adjkerntz(8) for details.
1,31 0-5 * * * root adjkerntz -a

Checking for control characters shows only tabs and eol
LANG=C sed -n '/[^ -~]/l' /etc/crontab
#minute\thour\tmday\tmonth\twday\twho\tcommand$
*/11\t*\t*\t*\t*\toperator /usr/libexec/save-entropy$
0\t*\t*\t*\t*\troot\tnewsyslog$
1\t3\t*\t*\t*\troot\tperiodic daily$
15\t4\t*\t*\t6\troot\tperiodic weekly$
30\t5\t1\t*\t*\troot\tperiodic monthly$
1,31\t0-5\t*\t*\t*\troot\tadjkerntz -a$

Any hints of where to look?

 

[Kai Burghardt]

[…] Any hints of where to look?

last(1)  reboot: Well, is your computer on at 3:01 a.m. ( periodic daily), on Saturday at 4:15 a. m. ( weekly), at 5:30 a. m. on the first day of the month ( monthly), and at 0:01 a. m., 0:31 a. m., 1:01 a. m., …, 5:31 a. m. ( adjkerntz)? You can temporarily set the date(1)  04010529 to see that in principle it does work, cron(8) should pick up on the changed time and date.​

LANG=C sed -n '/[^ -~]/l' /etc/crontab

vis(1)  ‑clNw /etc/crontab ​

PS: Instead of [icode] (inline code) the XenForo forum software also supports [code] tags, cmp. Thread 45189.​

 

[it-people]

I install anacron on all my desktops, or other machines not running 24/7.
Maybe you want to look into that

 

[Styrsven]

I keep backups of my previous /etc and /usr/local/etc on my nas and i really didn't see the anacron lines that were there until you guys told me.
Thanks a lot.
I blame my age and the effects it have on my memory.

 

[kent_dorfman766]

Are you logging to user email as well? The email status messages would my first check for script problems.

 

[schweikh]

-deleted- I did not look properly at the man page.

 

[Alain De Vos]

Syntax can be picky.
fcron is a good alternative.