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Run programs at startup via crontab
Authored by: syko on Nov 05, '04 09:20:13PM

What's the main differences between crontab -e

and modifying /etc/crontab?

i know crontab -e can modify a users crontab as well as a system one, but /etc/crontab seems separate from the command crontab -e

which one to use and modify?



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Run programs at startup via crontab
Authored by: guybrush on Nov 06, '04 02:58:13PM

There is no difference afaik,
crontab -e just fires an editor to edit /etc/crontab (probably vi).



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Run programs at startup via crontab
Authored by: hypert on Nov 08, '04 12:41:42PM

There's a big difference!

crontab -e edits your user crontab (stored in something like /var/spool/cron/username, which should NEVER be edited directly!)

/etc/crontab is the "system" cron job. The format of this file is slightly different, since it takes an extra argument before the actual command to be run. That argument is the username under which the command will run, If you were administering a Mac that saw a LOT of users, this is a nice plan to manage crons for all them (and the users can't edit them!).



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