Logwatch on CentOS 5.3 64bit

[aquila]

Hello,

I have a sever that runs on centos 5.3 64 bit. The default installation did not come with logwatch and I had to yum it. Now that it is installed, I don't receive any emails everyday (although it is configured to). I then found that none of the daily, weekly, monthly crons worked. I realized I did not have anacron installed.

I then yumed anacron as well. Anacron is installed now. It never runs though. I did a service anacron start. It runs for a few hours and sends a logwatch email (without any content) and then somehow dies off.

I know this must be a stupid question, but why isn't my daily, weekly,monthly cron jobs not running? How can I get logwatch to work properly? What do I need to do to make anacron run successfully?

Thanks in advance.

 

[nobaloney]

I know this must be a stupid question, but why isn't my daily, weekly,monthly cron jobs not running?
Because your crond daemon isn't running.

How can I get logwatch to work properly?

Fix crond.

What do I need to do to make anacron run successfully?

This is a question for a CentOS specific forum or mailing list.

Jeff

 

[aquila]

Thanks Jeff,
My crond is always running. It also runs whatever is listed on crontab

]# ps -aux | grep crond
Warning: bad syntax, perhaps a bogus '-'? See /usr/share/doc/procps-3.2.7/FAQ
root      5432  0.0  0.0  19712   824 ?        Ss   Jun09   0:04 crond
root     20794  0.0  0.0   6056   612 pts/0    R+   09:17   0:00 grep crond
root     28885  0.0  0.1  46892  1196 ?        S    05:00   0:00 crond

Only thing that don't work is what listed under daily/monthly/weekly

]# ls /etc/cron*
/etc/cron.deny  /etc/crontab  /etc/crontab.rpmnew

/etc/cron.d:
csf_update  csfcron.sh  directadmin_cron  installatron  lfdcron.sh  refresh.apf

/etc/cron.daily:
0anacron  0logwatch  chkrootkit.sh  freshclam  logrotate  makewhatis.cron  mlocate.cron  prelink  rkhunter.sh  rpm

/etc/cron.hourly:

/etc/cron.monthly:
0anacron

/etc/cron.weekly:
0anacron  makewhatis.cron

What else do you think I'm missing?

Thanks.

 

[Marshall]

Check your /etc/crontab file, since you say it is running whatever is in it make sure it has the following:

# run-parts
01 * * * * root run-parts /etc/cron.hourly
02 4 * * * root run-parts /etc/cron.daily
22 4 * * 0 root run-parts /etc/cron.weekly
42 4 1 * * root run-parts /etc/cron.monthly

If you see it has this, try running run-parts as root in your ssh terminal to see if it is working. When I run it I get:

[root@tx-1 ~]# run-parts
Usage: run-parts <dir>

If you see something else, your run-parts program may not be working correctly which is stopping the other cron tasks from running.

Also, try checking /var/log/cron to see if there are any errors being reported in the logs.

 

[aquila]

Marshall,

Thanks for the reply. I checked my /etc/crontab and it was empty. I added the lines you have mentioned.

# cat /etc/crontab
# run-parts
01 * * * * root run-parts /etc/cron.hourly
02 4 * * * root run-parts /etc/cron.daily
22 4 * * 0 root run-parts /etc/cron.weekly
42 4 1 * * root run-parts /etc/cron.monthly

When I ran run-parts I get the following:

# run-parts
Usage: run-parts <dir>

/var/log/cron - doesn't show any error. Is everything alrgiht now?

 

[Marshall]

Hm, it was completely empty? You may also need this at the top, above everything else in the crontab file:

SHELL=/bin/sh
PATH=/sbin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin
MAILTO=root
HOME=/

This should be enough to make it work, best way to know for sure is if you receive the logwatch email sometime tonight.

 

[aquila]

Yes, it was completely empty. I've now added those lines on the top. I will wait and see if I receive the logwatch email in sometime. I will let you know. Thanks again.