Unix System Administration
cron
Lab 8
Always make backups of files before making changes to them. Include all settings and test results in your journal.
Part A:
Procedure:
1) Verify the date (and time) is correct within reason on your computer. Correct if necessary.
2) Download the program run from the linux.starkstate.net server.
3) Execute the program run and identify the jobs that are scheduled to run, and the times they are
scheduled to run. Include this information in your journal. Then remove these jobs (and kill any
currently running processes started by run)
Part B:
4) Write a script to e-mail your root account a list of current users logged on
5) Add the script to a cron job to run every 10 minutes. Note, to view the cron table listings, you can
type the command crontab -l.
6) From another terminal, (CTRL-ALT-F2, or use ssh user@localhost) logon as one of your users and
then verify that you received the mail.
7) Disable this cron job.
Part C:
8) Create a cron job that runs your check_permissions script from the filesystem lab once a day at a time
while your computer will be on. Change the permissions on a file so that this cron job will alert you
that something has changed and test it.
9) Identify three tasks that a system administrator may need to run routinely.