Crontab editing error

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Posted by Dawizz, 01-13-2008, 02:04 AM
Hi Guys, I have a strange problem (most likly user error ) I am trying to edit crontab using crontab -e, I seem to get to it okay but I am unable to edit anything in there, at the end of the file there are ~ in there, and I cant even delete them. Its like the file is locked. Has anyone got any suggestens??? Thanks,
Posted by psyxakias, 01-13-2008, 02:16 AM
That's probably because your O/S uses vi as default editor. You may read vi's helpfile by typing (after startign crontab -e): :viusage Or if you would prefer pico/nano as default editor, you may set this on your bash profile and re-login: export EDITOR=pico or export EDITOR=nano
Posted by Dawizz, 01-13-2008, 02:30 AM
Thanks for that, it worked, now it is saving to the tmp directory...
Posted by ub3r, 01-13-2008, 03:07 AM
it does that.
Posted by psyxakias, 01-13-2008, 03:16 AM
It always saves to tmp directory and once you exit the editor, it should be removing the file
Posted by ub3r, 01-13-2008, 03:31 AM
it saves it, then the crontab thing copies it to the proper location. to verify, go to /var/spool/cron/ and check the user's crontab.
Posted by Dawizz, 01-13-2008, 05:25 AM
Yeah it did save it, I never seen the crontab save to tmp directory before, or maybe i just never noticed, Thanks all for your help.. :-)