[gentoo-user] Receiving mail from crontab

[gentoo-user] Receiving mail from crontab

[Mick]

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Hi All,

I am getting a bit confused from the messages that I receive in my gmail 
account sent from my crontab.

First, is related to the title which is:

 Cron <root@mylaptop> test -x /usr/sbin/run-crons && /usr/sbin/run-crons

I am not sure what this "test -x" part represents?


The second question is related to the output of chkrootkit, which is run by 
the cron.weekly and emails stuff that don't make much sense to me:
==========================================
$Ld$ Ll$(Lt$0HÄ8ÃAWAVAUIýATUSHH°èH›AÇHÝHL$ØMäITMt$(HÒtdfDIt$ 
Hötm½(Ht8fLïèHþÿÿITHÃHÆLïèHßèHîHÅ(It$ 
HuÊIMôIÆ(HÒu¢DÿèH1À[]A\A]A^A_ÃLæLïèþÿÿëÊLïH5H421ÒèoþÿÿDÿèëÃDS1öH°H;èHß[éCopyright 
(C) the VideoLAN VLC media player developersLicensed under the terms of the 
GNU General Public License, version 2 or later.Freebox TV listing (French ISP 
free.fr services)http/shout-
winamp://www.shoutcast.com/sbin/newxml.phtmlhttp/shout-
winamp://www.shoutcast.com/sbin/newtvlister.phtml?alltv=1http://mafreebox.freebox.fr/freeboxtv/playlist.m3uhttp://www.canalplus.fr/index.php?pid=1784shoutshoutcast-
limitShoutcastShoutcast radio 
listingsservices_discoveryshoutcastShoutcastTVShoutcast TV 
listingsshoutcasttvfrenchtvFrench TVFreeboxfreeboxStarting FreeboxStarting 
FrenchTVStarting ShoutTVStarting ShoutRadiono-playlist-
autostartItemAddedShoutcast RadioShoutcast TVFreebox TVvlc://nopCanal +Les 
Guignolshttp-forward-cookieszRL«ACF0lsJG ,A¤,A¼,AÔ)AìOG0$OL@4DûBBB E(A0A8D@|
GCC: (Gentoo 4.3.4 p1.0, pie-10.1.5) 
4.3.4.symtab.strtab.shstrtab.rela.text.data.bss.rodata.str1.8.rodata.str1.1.rela.data.rel.ro.local.rela.eh_frame.comment.note.GNU-
stack @&12@2s
==========================================

Now I happened to notice that the above legible references to vlc are from the 
"services discovery" list that the vlc player shows under Media/Services.  Not 
sure what they are doing in chckrootkit ... is it telling me that it just 
scanned all such content?  When I run it manually it looks just the same and 
follows a long output following "Searching for suspect PHP files..."  I am not 
sure I understand why chkrootkit is emailing these to me and if I need to do 
something about it.
-- 
Regards,
Mick

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Re: [gentoo-user] Receiving mail from crontab

[Jason Dusek]

2010/05/04 Mick <michaelkintzios@gmail.com>:
>   Cron <root@mylaptop> test -x /usr/sbin/run-crons && /usr/sbin/run-crons
>
> I am not sure what this "test -x" part represents?

  The `test -x <ffile>' part means "Test that <file> is executable."
  and, implicitly, tests that the file exists. Sorry not to be more
  helpful.

--
Jason Dusek
Linux User #510144 | http://counter.li.org/

Re: [gentoo-user] Receiving mail from crontab

[Alex Schuster]

Mick writes:

> I am getting a bit confused from the messages that I receive in my
> gmail account sent from my crontab.
> 
> First, is related to the title which is:
> 
>  Cron <root@mylaptop> test -x /usr/sbin/run-crons &&
> /usr/sbin/run-crons
> 
> I am not sure what this "test -x" part represents?

It means: If /usr/sbin/run-crons is executable, execute it. It could also 
be written as 
    [ -x /usr/sbin/run-crons ] && /usr/sbin/run-crons
or
    f=/usr/sbin/run-crons
    if [ -x $f ]
    then
        $f
    fi


No idea about your other question, though.

	Wonko

Re: [gentoo-user] Receiving mail from crontab

[Alan McKinnon]

On Wednesday 05 May 2010 00:17:09 Mick wrote:
> Hi All,
> 
> I am getting a bit confused from the messages that I receive in my gmail
> account sent from my crontab.
> 
> First, is related to the title which is:
> 
>  Cron <root@mylaptop> test -x /usr/sbin/run-crons && /usr/sbin/run-crons
> 
> I am not sure what this "test -x" part represents?
> 
> 
> The second question is related to the output of chkrootkit, which is run by
> the cron.weekly and emails stuff that don't make much sense to me:
> ==========================================
> $Ld$ Ll$(Lt$0HÄ8ÃAWAVAUIýATUSHH°èH›AÇHÝHL$ØMäITMt$(HÒtdfDIt$
> Hötm½(Ht8fLïèHþÿÿITHÃHÆLïèHßèHîHÅ(It$
> HuÊIMôIÆ(HÒu¢DÿèH1À[]A\A]A^A_ÃLæLïèþÿÿëÊLïH5H421ÒèoþÿÿDÿèëÃDS1öH°H;èHß[éCop
> yright (C) the VideoLAN VLC media player developersLicensed under the terms
> of the GNU General Public License, version 2 or later.Freebox TV listing
> (French ISP free.fr services)http/shout-
> winamp://www.shoutcast.com/sbin/newxml.phtmlhttp/shout-
> winamp://www.shoutcast.com/sbin/newtvlister.phtml?alltv=1http://mafreebox.f
> reebox.fr/freeboxtv/playlist.m3uhttp://www.canalplus.fr/index.php?pid=1784s
> houtshoutcast- limitShoutcastShoutcast radio
> listingsservices_discoveryshoutcastShoutcastTVShoutcast TV
> listingsshoutcasttvfrenchtvFrench TVFreeboxfreeboxStarting FreeboxStarting
> FrenchTVStarting ShoutTVStarting ShoutRadiono-playlist-
> autostartItemAddedShoutcast RadioShoutcast TVFreebox TVvlc://nopCanal +Les
> Guignolshttp-forward-cookieszRL«ACF0lsJG ,A¤,A¼,AÔ)AìOG0$OL@4DûBBB
> E(A0A8D@| GCC: (Gentoo 4.3.4 p1.0, pie-10.1.5)
> 4.3.4.symtab.strtab.shstrtab.rela.text.data.bss.rodata.str1.8.rodata.str1.1
> .rela.data.rel.ro.local.rela.eh_frame.comment.note.GNU- stack @&12@2s
> ==========================================
> 
> Now I happened to notice that the above legible references to vlc are from
> the "services discovery" list that the vlc player shows under
> Media/Services.  Not sure what they are doing in chckrootkit ... is it
> telling me that it just scanned all such content?  When I run it manually
> it looks just the same and follows a long output following "Searching for
> suspect PHP files..."  I am not sure I understand why chkrootkit is
> emailing these to me and if I need to do something about it.

cron captures the output from any program it runs. If there is any output at 
all, it will mail it to you. In this case, something launched by run-crons is 
spewing something to STDOUT and you are getting it in your inbox.

As to what it means, well it looks like garbage. So you will have to run the 
chkrootkit program yourself and debug how it is going wrong and fix it. This, 
of course, has nothing whatsoever to do with cron itself.

The output looks like standard banner garbage that apps often write to the 
terminal when launched. I suspect an omitted "> /dev/null" somewhere


-- 
alan dot mckinnon at gmail dot com

Re: [gentoo-user] Receiving mail from crontab

[Mick]

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On Tuesday 04 May 2010 23:40:20 Alex Schuster wrote:
> Mick writes:
> > I am getting a bit confused from the messages that I receive in my
> > gmail account sent from my crontab.
> >
> > First, is related to the title which is:
> >
> >  Cron <root@mylaptop> test -x /usr/sbin/run-crons &&
> > /usr/sbin/run-crons
> >
> > I am not sure what this "test -x" part represents?
> 
> It means: If /usr/sbin/run-crons is executable, execute it. It could also
> be written as
>     [ -x /usr/sbin/run-crons ] && /usr/sbin/run-crons
> or
>     f=/usr/sbin/run-crons
>     if [ -x $f ]
>     then
>         $f
>     fi

Thank you, I understand what the test does.  What I am not sure is why this is 
printed on the title of the email.  Where is what is printed on the email 
title controlled from?  Is it editable?

-- 
Regards,
Mick

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Re: [gentoo-user] Receiving mail from crontab

[Alan McKinnon]

On Wednesday 05 May 2010 07:45:24 Mick wrote:
> On Tuesday 04 May 2010 23:40:20 Alex Schuster wrote:
> > Mick writes:
> > > I am getting a bit confused from the messages that I receive in my
> > > gmail account sent from my crontab.
> > > 
> > > First, is related to the title which is:
> > >  Cron <root@mylaptop> test -x /usr/sbin/run-crons &&
> > > 
> > > /usr/sbin/run-crons
> > > 
> > > I am not sure what this "test -x" part represents?
> > 
> > It means: If /usr/sbin/run-crons is executable, execute it. It could also
> > be written as
> > 
> >     [ -x /usr/sbin/run-crons ] && /usr/sbin/run-crons
> > 
> > or
> > 
> >     f=/usr/sbin/run-crons
> >     if [ -x $f ]
> >     then
> >     
> >         $f
> >     
> >     fi
> 
> Thank you, I understand what the test does.  What I am not sure is why this
> is printed on the title of the email.  Where is what is printed on the
> email title controlled from?  Is it editable?

It's cron's default. If it sends a mail, by default it does this:

The subject is the program field in the crontab
The body is the output from the program.

You can't normally change that. What you do is edit your called script to 
intelligently mail you the information you do want, and send all output to 
devnull to suppress cron's default mailer settings

-- 
alan dot mckinnon at gmail dot com

Re: [gentoo-user] Receiving mail from crontab

[Neil Bothwick]

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On Wed, 5 May 2010 01:06:21 +0200, Alan McKinnon wrote:

> The output looks like standard banner garbage that apps often write to
> the terminal when launched. I suspect an omitted "> /dev/null" somewhere

Or maybe a --quiet option to suppress this but keep useful information.


-- 
Neil Bothwick

MIPS: Meaningless Indication of Processor Speed

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Re: [gentoo-user] Receiving mail from crontab

[Mick]

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On Wednesday 05 May 2010 08:39:33 Neil Bothwick wrote:
> On Wed, 5 May 2010 01:06:21 +0200, Alan McKinnon wrote:
> > The output looks like standard banner garbage that apps often write to
> > the terminal when launched. I suspect an omitted "> /dev/null" somewhere
> 
> Or maybe a --quiet option to suppress this but keep useful information.

Hmm ... chkrootkit is being run as:

exec /usr/sbin/chkrootkit -q

from /etc/cron.weekly/chkrootkit so I was not sure it all this garbage was 
something that I should ignore.
-- 
Regards,
Mick

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