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Edit root's crontab, not system crontab
Authored by: TrumpetPower! on Jun 16, '04 12:01:01AM

In administering a modern Unix system, you should (almost) never need to edit the system crontab.

If you want to run something at daily, weekly, or monthly intervals, use the system's periodic jobs already built for that purpose. If you want to run something at other intervals, use root's own crontab. From your favorite shell, do:

sudo crontab -e

If at all possible, of course, it's much preferable to use a non-privileged account for the task (it probably isn't possible for this particular hint). To edit your own crontab, leave out the ``sudo.'' To edit a crontab for another user:

sudo crontab -u somebody -e

By default, OS X doesn't have a root crontab, but that's okay. For help, see:

man 5 crontab

Cheers,

b&



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