crond ignores symlinks in /etc/cron.d

[H.-Dirk Schmitt]

Binary package hint: cron

If have some symlinks below /etc/cron.d pointing to another directory (configuration repository).

E.g. /etc/cron.d/c42-dump-fs is such a symlink.
On restart of crond i found following in the syslog:
Feb 22 23:23:43 XXXX cron[6128]: (*system*c42-dump-fs) WRONG INODE INFO (/etc/cron.d/c42-dump-fs)

The file has also a marker for syslog:
@daily nobody logger -p local0.notice -t CRON '$Id: c42-dump-fs.XXXX 4388 2011-02-15 23:41:20Z XXXX $'

This is also not printed in the syslog.

For the other symlinked configuration it is the same.
On my lucid machines the symlinks behaves well.

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 11.04
Package: cron 3.0pl1-116ubuntu1
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 2.6.38-4.31-server 2.6.38-rc5
Uname: Linux 2.6.38-4-server x86_64
Architecture: amd64
Date: Tue Feb 22 23:09:53 2011
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu-Server 11.04 "Natty Narwhal" - Alpha amd64 (20110201.2)
ProcEnviron:
 LANGUAGE=de_DE:de:en_US:en
 PATH=(custom, no user)
 LANG=de_DE.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
 LC_PAPER=de_DE.UTF-8
SourcePackage: cron

[Christian Kastner (ckk)]

On 02/22/2011 11:28 PM, H.-Dirk Schmitt wrote:
> If have some symlinks below /etc/cron.d pointing to another directory
> (configuration repository).

/etc/cron.d has no recursive support, so any symlinks pointing to
directories won't work.

> E.g. /etc/cron.d/c42-dump-fs is such a symlink.
> On restart of crond i found following in the syslog:
> Feb 22 23:23:43 XXXX cron[6128]: (*system*c42-dump-fs) WRONG INODE INFO (/etc/cron.d/c42-dump-fs)

(I'm assuming c42-dump-fs is a file, not a directory, because of the
syslog marker below)

Admittedly, the error message is confusing. Both owner:group of
/etc/cron.d/c42-dump-fs must be root:root; the error message intends to
say that at least one of those is not the case.

> The file has also a marker for syslog:
> @daily nobody logger -p local0.notice -t CRON '$Id: c42-dump-fs.XXXX 4388 2011-02-15 23:41:20Z XXXX $'

Because of the ownership issues above, this file would be ignored.

[H.-Dirk Schmitt (dirk-computer42)]

c42-dump-fs is a file.
It has root:root ownership and ug=rw,o=r permissions.

[H.-Dirk Schmitt (dirk-computer42)]

Further investigations shows that changing the group permissions with "chmog g-w" fixes the problem.
This behavior is different from lucid, where symlinked group writable files are working.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

Status changed to 'Confirmed' because the bug affects multiple users.