Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!usc!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!mips!prls!pyramid!csg From: csg@pyramid.pyramid.com (Carl S. Gutekunst) Newsgroups: comp.sys.pyramid Subject: Re: Disappearing cron Message-ID: <133507@pyramid.pyramid.com> Date: 8 Nov 90 22:05:56 GMT References: <1990Nov6.165642.2742@ioe.lon.ac.uk> <1990Nov7.110335.12110@ioe.lon.ac.uk> Organization: Pyramid Technology Corp., Mountain View, CA Lines: 16 The ucb cron in OSx 4.1 definitely disappeared on a regular basis. I remember this all too well from our E-Mail/News machine getting backed up to rafters when cron died yet again. I recall that it had something to do with cron not protecting itself against signals, that is, cron and the tasks it started ran in the same procress group, so that when a task signal itself or was sent a signal, it got the shell, too. Of course, this is ancient history; so I may be thinking of something entirely different. (OSx 4.1 has been outdated for over three years. On a 98xe, there is no reason not to be running at least OSx 5.0 or 5.1.) Something to try: instead of running commands directly out of crontab, use a C Shell script that calls the commands. C Shell always changes the process group of commands that it runs, so if signals are the problem, then using an intervening C Shell script should fix it.