Crontab permission problem

Question

I have a fc19 host at work.
This morning crontab did not work.

$ ls -l /usr/bin/crontab
----------. 1 root root 53472 Jun 11  2013 /usr/bin/crontab

The permissions -------- means no one has access and can't change rights or rename etc.

To have access to this should the permission be changed to rwxr-xr-x?
What can do ?

Solution

Correct right to /usr/bin/crontab are -rwsr-xr-x. So use chmod 4755 /usr/bin/crontab to set them.

Comments

[geedoubleya]

As the root user you will need to use the chmod command to change it to -rwsr-xr-x. 1 root root 53472 Jun 11 2013 /usr/bin/crontab Notice the rws This is the setuid (set user id) bit.

[Gilles 'SO- stop being evil']

Beyond fixing the symptom, you should investigate why the permissions were changed. Also, note that the file has an SELinux context, which may or may not be correct.

[user3918478]

i dont have any idea what is reason to change the file but now i can't edit, remove, delete, rename, or do anything as root

[user3918478]

chmod 4755 /usr/bin/crontab after that chmod: changing permissions of â/usr/bin/crontabâ: Operation not permitted

[Scyld de Fraud]

You need to run that command as root user.

[Gilles 'SO- stop being evil']

What about the SELinux context?