crontab sends mail to wrong user

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1

Hi,

I have been running two Servers with Suse 10.1 for many years (since 10.1 was released) and it runs flawlessly.

I don’t want to upgrade as it runs and is customized too far to remember what I have done over the years.

So, one is a main server and the other is used to backup the main server at night (and provide other stuff like printing, wiki, pxe boot, etc.). I call them server and backup (I am not very creative).

I have a few crontab jobs that run on both servers.

When the backup server runs a crontab job it mails root as I expect it to do.

Meanwhile, crontab entries on server end up mailing the results to user steve (thats me) instead of root?

I don’t have a clue why but I can guarantee that it is something I have done over the years I just don’t know what.

Having two servers which are identical (even hardware) is handy because I can compare things but this time I do not see any difference.

For example /etc/crontab is identical on both servers.

I would appreciate any help because logging into server with user steve is a pain.

Thank you for your help- Steve

2

If you are using sendmail, check “/etc/aliases”. I’m not sure what to check for postfix.

I ran 10.1 for a long time. But it was time to move on somewhere around 3 years ago. I suggest that you consider doing likewise.

3

Same file.

Alternatively use YaST > Network Services > Mail Transfer Agent; on about the third page there is a “Forward root’s mail to” box, if there is an entry “steve” delete it.

Permitting a remote login as root is not a good idea. “su” or “sudo” are generally preferable.

4

You are correct!

I went into YAST and fixed it.

Thank you for your help- Steve