From: Phil Farrell (farrell@pangea.Stanford.EDU)
Date: Fri Jan 03 2003 - 13:46:40 EST
Hi Managers,
Dr. Thomas Blinn hit the nail on the head. My mistake was rather silly.
I updated the list of holidays, but forgot to update the year number
at the top of the /usr/sbin/acct/holidays file to be 2003! Sometimes
you just need another pair of eyes to see what is right in front of
your nose :-).
Original question follows.
-Phil Farrell, Computer Systems Manager
Stanford University School of Earth Sciences
farrell@pangea.stanford.edu
> Hi Managers,
>
> My Tru64 UNIX v4.0g system (all latest patches applied) has been
> sending me the following mail message every day around 3 a.m. since
> at least December 27 (could be earlier -- I wasn't paying close
> attention at first):
>
> > Date: Fri, 3 Jan 2003 03:19:19 -0800 (PST)
> > From: System PRIVILEGED Account <root>
>
> > ***UPDATE /usr/sbin/acct/holidays WITH NEW HOLIDAYS***
>
>
> > *************************************************
> > Cron: The previous message is the standard output
> > and standard error of one of your cron commands.
>
> I edited the /usr/sbin/acct/holidays file the first time I saw
> this message. But the message won't stop! How do I stop it?
>
> I run a system management script every day at 2:30 a.m., which
> usually takes 30 to 40 minutes to complete its tasks. One of
> the last tasks is to process the previous day's accounting information
> with /usr/sbin/acct/acctcms. This occurs near the end of the
> script and would be consistent with the timing of the cron
> mails. I see with "strings" that this executable contains the string
> ***UPDATE %s WITH NEW HOLIDAYS***
> so it is undoubtedly the source of the message. But how do I
> convince it that I have updated the file, so it will stop pestering
> me with those messages?
>
> Thanks for any ideas.
>
> -Phil Farrell, Computer Systems Manager
> Stanford University School of Earth Sciences
> farrell@pangea.stanford.edu
Tom
Dr. Thomas P. Blinn + Tru64 UNIX Software + Hewlett-Packard Company
Internet: tpb@zk3.dec.com, thomas.blinn@compaq.com, thomas.blinn@hp.com
110 Spit Brook Road, MS ZKO3-2/W17 Nashua, New Hampshire 03062-2698
Alpha Hardware Platforms and I/O Phone: (603) 884-0646
ACM Member: tpblinn@acm.org PC@Home: tom@felines.mv.net
Worry kills more people than work because more people worry than work.
Keep your stick on the ice. -- Steve Smith ("Red Green")
My favorite palindrome is: Satan, oscillate my metallic sonatas.
-- Phil Agre, pagre@alpha.oac.ucla.edu
Yesterday it worked / Today it is not working / UNIX is like that
-- apologies to Margaret Segall
Opinions expressed herein are my own, and do not necessarily represent
those of my employer or anyone else, living or dead, real or imagined.
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