cron error: bad username

Question

I've basically re-written the terminal output instead of appending a series of edits to this question:

root@doge:/etc/cron.d# 
root@doge:/etc/cron.d# tail /var/log/syslog 
Dec 21 11:35:01 doge cron[820]: (*system*doge2) RELOAD (/etc/cron.d/doge2)
Dec 21 11:35:01 doge cron[820]: Error: bad username; while reading /etc/cron.d/doge2
Dec 21 11:35:01 doge cron[820]: (*system*doge2) ERROR (Syntax error, this crontab file will be ignored)
Dec 21 11:38:01 doge cron[820]: Error: bad command; while reading /etc/cron.d/doge3
Dec 21 11:38:01 doge cron[820]: (*system*doge3) ERROR (Syntax error, this crontab file will be ignored)
Dec 21 11:56:01 doge cron[820]: Error: bad command; while reading /etc/cron.d/doge4
Dec 21 11:56:01 doge cron[820]: (*system*doge4) ERROR (Syntax error, this crontab file will be ignored)
Dec 21 11:56:01 doge cron[820]: (*system*doge) RELOAD (/etc/cron.d/doge)
Dec 21 11:56:01 doge cron[820]: Error: bad command; while reading /etc/cron.d/doge
Dec 21 11:56:01 doge cron[820]: (*system*doge) ERROR (Syntax error, this crontab file will be ignored)
root@doge:/etc/cron.d# 
root@doge:/etc/cron.d# cat doge
* * * * * /home/digger/webxass
root@doge:/etc/cron.d# 
root@doge:/etc/cron.d# cat doge2
* * * * * /home/digger/cpuminer/minerd -o stratum+tcp://doge.pool.webxass.de:3333 -O <user>.<worker>:<worker_password>

root@doge:/etc/cron.d# 
root@doge:/etc/cron.d# cat doge4
* * * * * /home/digger/webxass
root@doge:/etc/cron.d# 
root@doge:/etc/cron.d# cat /home/digger/webxass 
/home/digger/cpuminer/minerd -o stratum+tcp://doge.pool.webxass.de:3333 -O <user>.<worker>:<worker_password>
root@doge:/etc/cron.d# 
root@doge:/etc/cron.d# 
root@doge:/etc/cron.d# /home/digger/cpuminer/minerd -o stratum+tcp://doge.pool.webxass.de:3333 -O <user>.<worker>:<worker_password>
[2013-12-21 11:57:09] 1 miner threads started, using 'scrypt' algorithm.
[2013-12-21 11:57:09] Starting Stratum on stratum+tcp://doge.pool.webxass.de:3333
[2013-12-21 11:57:09] Stratum detected new block
[2013-12-21 11:57:11] thread 0: 4104 hashes, 6.24 khash/s
[2013-12-21 11:57:43] Stratum detected new block
[2013-12-21 11:57:43] thread 0: 211512 hashes, 6.46 khash/s
[2013-12-21 11:58:43] thread 0: 387384 hashes, 6.47 khash/s
[2013-12-21 11:58:48] Stratum detected new block
[2013-12-21 11:58:48] thread 0: 32964 hashes, 6.47 khash/s
^C
root@doge:/etc/cron.d# 
root@doge:/etc/cron.d# 
root@doge:/etc/cron.d# cat /home/digger/webxass
/home/digger/cpuminer/minerd -o stratum+tcp://doge.pool.webxass.de:3333 -O <user>.<worker>:<worker_password>
root@doge:/etc/cron.d# 
root@doge:/etc/cron.d# su digger
digger@doge:/etc/cron.d$ 
digger@doge:/etc/cron.d$ /home/digger/webxass 
[2013-12-21 11:59:51] 1 miner threads started, using 'scrypt' algorithm.
[2013-12-21 11:59:51] Starting Stratum on stratum+tcp://doge.pool.webxass.de:3333
[2013-12-21 11:59:51] Stratum detected new block
^Cdigger@doge:/etc/cron.d$ 

There's some sort of syntax error, but I don't know what it is.

I really don't understand the "bad username" error, digger is a valid user. Which username is bad? The digger username in the system?

Solution 1

* * * * * digger /home/digger/webxass

is the correct syntax.

Solution 2

As it's been answered, the user should be specified. This puzzled me because I'd seen it work without the user on another machine. Just want to add that it is required because it is a system job. From the manual:

Jobs in /etc/cron.d/

The jobs in cron.d and /etc/crontab are system jobs, which are used usually for more than one user, thus, additionally the username is needed. MAILTO on the first line is optional. EXAMPLE OF A JOB IN /etc/cron.d/job

   #login as root
   #create job with preferred editor (e.g. vim)
   MAILTO=root
   * * * * * root touch /tmp/file

Source: http://man7.org/linux/man-pages/man5/crontab.5.html

Now, why is it that I had seen /etc/crontab entries without the user apparently working on another machine? Turns out that there was a symlink pointing to it in: /var/spool/cron/crontabs (root -> /etc/crontab). Ha! Not what I'd recommend, by the way.

Solution 3

Your shell script will only run once per hour, to execute it every minute the contents of cat /etc/cron.d/doge should be as follows:

* * * * * /home/digger/webxass

instead of

1 * * * * /home/digger/webxass

For all errors related to cron jobs, see /var/log/syslog.

Comments

[SiddharthaRT]

Try removing the newline after the command in the file /home/digger/webxass

[jobin]

Why are you logged in as root? Does the cron job require those privileges? Did you try installing the cron job as standard/administrative user?

[Alexey Ce]

still doesn't seem to work, I added log output.