Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!csd4.milw.wisc.edu!dogie.macc.wisc.edu!uwvax!rutgers!att!alberta!ubc-cs!van-bc!norsat!dave
From: dave@norsat.UUCP (Dave Binette)
Newsgroups: comp.mail.uucp
Subject: su uucp in crontabs/root ?
Keywords: root uucp crontab su
Message-ID: <75@norsat.UUCP>
Date: 20 Apr 89 17:34:18 GMT
Organization: Norsat International (Research) Inc. Surrey, BC, CANADA
Lines: 30

Our SCO XENIX 2.3.1 installation of usenet news suggests installing lines
such as 9,39 * * * * ulimit 5000; /bin/su -c "/usr/lib/uucp/uu...

Can anyone tell me why this 'su' is neccessary?

The OS supports multiple crontabs:
/usr/spool/cron/crontabs/root
/usr/spool/cron/crontabs/uucp
/usr/spool/cron/crontabs/news

and enables them with:
/usr/lib/cron/cron.allow which contains:
root
uucp
news

The new crontab is enabled with the command:
crontab [filename]

( I get strange behaviour if i just edit the crontab/uucp file without
  submitting the changes via crontab {like it gets ignored} )

---
usenet:  {uunet,ubc-cs}!van-bc!norsat!dave     (Dave Binette)
bbs:     (604) 597 4361     3/12/24/PEP
voice:   (604) 597 6298
-- 
usenet:  {uunet,ubc-cs}!van-bc!norsat!dave     (Dave Binette)
bbs:     (604) 597 4361     3/12/24/PEP
voice:   (604) 597 6298