[gentoo-user] Odd cron errors

[gentoo-user] Odd cron errors

[Peter Humphrey]

Hell list,

I don't know when it started, but recently I've been getting error e-mails 
from cron, thus:

Password: 501 Not authorised --- Reply not authenticated

They're all timed at 03:10:0x, i.e. one minute after cron.daily tasks are run, 
and they occur at 7- or 8-day intervals. The only files in /etc/cron.daily are 
logrotate and man-db, neither of which I've touched.

I've been expiring that e-mail folder at 30 days, so I have only four 
instances - I've now set the lifetime to 366 days to allow a history to build 
up.

Anyone have a clue to this? It's hardly earth-shattering, but it might be good 
to find out what's going on.

-- 
Regards
Peter

Re: [gentoo-user] Odd cron errors

[Alan McKinnon]

On 01/07/2014 11:48, Peter Humphrey wrote:
> Hell list,
> 
> I don't know when it started, but recently I've been getting error e-mails 
> from cron, thus:
> 
> Password: 501 Not authorised --- Reply not authenticated
> 
> They're all timed at 03:10:0x, i.e. one minute after cron.daily tasks are run, 
> and they occur at 7- or 8-day intervals. The only files in /etc/cron.daily are 
> logrotate and man-db, neither of which I've touched.
> 
> I've been expiring that e-mail folder at 30 days, so I have only four 
> instances - I've now set the lifetime to 366 days to allow a history to build 
> up.
> 
> Anyone have a clue to this? It's hardly earth-shattering, but it might be good 
> to find out what's going on.
> 


the error looks like an http error.
Got any crons running wget, curl or lynx?



-- 
Alan McKinnon
alan.mckinnon@gmail.com

Re: [gentoo-user] Odd cron errors

[Dale]

Alan McKinnon wrote:
> On 01/07/2014 11:48, Peter Humphrey wrote:
>> Hell list,
>>
>> I don't know when it started, but recently I've been getting error e-mails 
>> from cron, thus:
>>
>> Password: 501 Not authorised --- Reply not authenticated
>>
>> They're all timed at 03:10:0x, i.e. one minute after cron.daily tasks are run, 
>> and they occur at 7- or 8-day intervals. The only files in /etc/cron.daily are 
>> logrotate and man-db, neither of which I've touched.
>>
>> I've been expiring that e-mail folder at 30 days, so I have only four 
>> instances - I've now set the lifetime to 366 days to allow a history to build 
>> up.
>>
>> Anyone have a clue to this? It's hardly earth-shattering, but it might be good 
>> to find out what's going on.
>>
>
> the error looks like an http error.
> Got any crons running wget, curl or lynx?
>
>
>

As many may recall, I set my system to do emails recently too.  I also
started getting this error.  The subject line is this:

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

Content of email is same as the OP posted.  I'm hoping that the subject
line will shed some light on this.  It seem cron at least triggers a
error of some sort.

Dale

:-)  :-)

Re: [gentoo-user] Odd cron errors

[Peter Humphrey]

On Tuesday 01 July 2014 12:57:53 Alan McKinnon wrote:

> the error looks like an http error.
> Got any crons running wget, curl or lynx?

I thought so too, but no, I have none of those called by cron. I do have an 
rsync job every 5 minutes to back up my home directory to the file server, and 
I think I saw http-like errors while I was developing that setup. But the 
server has nothing scheduled for that time of night either.

-- 
Regards
Peter

Re: [gentoo-user] Odd cron errors

[Mick]

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On Tuesday 01 Jul 2014 10:48:12 Peter Humphrey wrote:
> Hell list,
> 
> I don't know when it started, but recently I've been getting error e-mails
> from cron, thus:
> 
> Password: 501 Not authorised --- Reply not authenticated
> 
> They're all timed at 03:10:0x, i.e. one minute after cron.daily tasks are
> run, and they occur at 7- or 8-day intervals. The only files in
> /etc/cron.daily are logrotate and man-db, neither of which I've touched.
> 
> I've been expiring that e-mail folder at 30 days, so I have only four
> instances - I've now set the lifetime to 366 days to allow a history to
> build up.
> 
> Anyone have a clue to this? It's hardly earth-shattering, but it might be
> good to find out what's going on.

Only to confirm that I have been getting these on an old 32bit laptop.  I 
suspect that they are caused by chrony which I run on this PC and some passwd 
setup that chronyc requires to connect to the timeservers and update RTC et 
al, via chronyd.  I have not looked into configuring it beyond a rather 
superficial "it'll do for now" level and have not yet added any chrony.keys.  
When I get a moment I will revisit the configuration to add the required key, 
but will need to spend some time going through the man pages first.

-- 
Regards,
Mick

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Re: [gentoo-user] Odd cron errors

[Peter Humphrey]

On Tuesday 01 July 2014 12:13:39 Mick wrote:
> On Tuesday 01 Jul 2014 10:48:12 Peter Humphrey wrote:
> > Hell list,
> > 
> > I don't know when it started, but recently I've been getting error e-mails
> > from cron, thus:
> > 
> > Password: 501 Not authorised --- Reply not authenticated
> > 
> > They're all timed at 03:10:0x, i.e. one minute after cron.daily tasks are
> > run, and they occur at 7- or 8-day intervals. The only files in
> > /etc/cron.daily are logrotate and man-db, neither of which I've touched.
> > 
> > I've been expiring that e-mail folder at 30 days, so I have only four
> > instances - I've now set the lifetime to 366 days to allow a history to
> > build up.
> > 
> > Anyone have a clue to this? It's hardly earth-shattering, but it might be
> > good to find out what's going on.
> 
> Only to confirm that I have been getting these on an old 32bit laptop.  I
> suspect that they are caused by chrony which I run on this PC and some
> passwd setup that chronyc requires to connect to the timeservers and update
> RTC et al, via chronyd.  I have not looked into configuring it beyond a
> rather superficial "it'll do for now" level and have not yet added any
> chrony.keys. When I get a moment I will revisit the configuration to add
> the required key, but will need to spend some time going through the man
> pages first.

I was beginning to think I was the only one still running chrony :)

My chrony does have a key set up, so I don't think that's the cause. Now that 
you remind me, I changed the setup on 31/5. The Atom LAN server has an 
appalling hardware clock, so I changed things around so that both the Atom and 
this box synchronise over the Internet, and they peer with each other.

Maybe I should split them apart to make them independent. I'll watch them for 
a while first though, to see if a pattern emerges.

Thanks for the idea Mick.

-- 
Regards
Peter

Re: [gentoo-user] Odd cron errors

[Peter Humphrey]

On Tuesday 01 July 2014 15:01:33 I wrote:
> On Tuesday 01 July 2014 12:13:39 Mick wrote:
> > On Tuesday 01 Jul 2014 10:48:12 Peter Humphrey wrote:
> > > Hell list,
> > > 
> > > I don't know when it started, but recently I've been getting error
> > > e-mails
> > > from cron, thus:
> > > 
> > > Password: 501 Not authorised --- Reply not authenticated
> > > 
> > > They're all timed at 03:10:0x, i.e. one minute after cron.daily tasks
> > > are
> > > run, and they occur at 7- or 8-day intervals. The only files in
> > > /etc/cron.daily are logrotate and man-db, neither of which I've touched.
> > > 
> > > I've been expiring that e-mail folder at 30 days, so I have only four
> > > instances - I've now set the lifetime to 366 days to allow a history to
> > > build up.
> > > 
> > > Anyone have a clue to this? It's hardly earth-shattering, but it might
> > > be
> > > good to find out what's going on.
> > 
> > Only to confirm that I have been getting these on an old 32bit laptop.  I
> > suspect that they are caused by chrony which I run on this PC and some
> > passwd setup that chronyc requires to connect to the timeservers and
> > update
> > RTC et al, via chronyd.  I have not looked into configuring it beyond a
> > rather superficial "it'll do for now" level and have not yet added any
> > chrony.keys. When I get a moment I will revisit the configuration to add
> > the required key, but will need to spend some time going through the man
> > pages first.
> 
> I was beginning to think I was the only one still running chrony :)
> 
> My chrony does have a key set up, so I don't think that's the cause. Now
> that you remind me, I changed the setup on 31/5. The Atom LAN server has an
> appalling hardware clock, so I changed things around so that both the Atom
> and this box synchronise over the Internet, and they peer with each other.
> 
> Maybe I should split them apart to make them independent. I'll watch them
> for a while first though, to see if a pattern emerges.
> 
> Thanks for the idea Mick.

Well, a week ago I did split the two chronys (the one on the server and the 
one on the workstation), but I got another mail at 03:10:05 today. So I guess 
that isn't it.

-- 
Regards
Peter

Re: [gentoo-user] Odd cron errors

[Mick]

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On Sunday 13 Jul 2014 10:20:47 Peter Humphrey wrote:
> On Tuesday 01 July 2014 15:01:33 I wrote:
> > On Tuesday 01 July 2014 12:13:39 Mick wrote:
> > > On Tuesday 01 Jul 2014 10:48:12 Peter Humphrey wrote:
> > > > Hell list,
> > > > 
> > > > I don't know when it started, but recently I've been getting error
> > > > e-mails
> > > > from cron, thus:
> > > > 
> > > > Password: 501 Not authorised --- Reply not authenticated
> > > > 
> > > > They're all timed at 03:10:0x, i.e. one minute after cron.daily tasks
> > > > are
> > > > run, and they occur at 7- or 8-day intervals. The only files in
> > > > /etc/cron.daily are logrotate and man-db, neither of which I've
> > > > touched.
> > > > 
> > > > I've been expiring that e-mail folder at 30 days, so I have only four
> > > > instances - I've now set the lifetime to 366 days to allow a history
> > > > to build up.
> > > > 
> > > > Anyone have a clue to this? It's hardly earth-shattering, but it
> > > > might be
> > > > good to find out what's going on.
> > > 
> > > Only to confirm that I have been getting these on an old 32bit laptop. 
> > > I suspect that they are caused by chrony which I run on this PC and
> > > some passwd setup that chronyc requires to connect to the timeservers
> > > and update
> > > RTC et al, via chronyd.  I have not looked into configuring it beyond a
> > > rather superficial "it'll do for now" level and have not yet added any
> > > chrony.keys. When I get a moment I will revisit the configuration to
> > > add the required key, but will need to spend some time going through
> > > the man pages first.
> > 
> > I was beginning to think I was the only one still running chrony :)
> > 
> > My chrony does have a key set up, so I don't think that's the cause. Now
> > that you remind me, I changed the setup on 31/5. The Atom LAN server has
> > an appalling hardware clock, so I changed things around so that both the
> > Atom and this box synchronise over the Internet, and they peer with each
> > other.
> > 
> > Maybe I should split them apart to make them independent. I'll watch them
> > for a while first though, to see if a pattern emerges.
> > 
> > Thanks for the idea Mick.
> 
> Well, a week ago I did split the two chronys (the one on the server and the
> one on the workstation), but I got another mail at 03:10:05 today. So I
> guess that isn't it.

Please try this:

Go the PC that keeps getting these messages in its logs.  Run:

$ chrony

chronyc> password
password: <manually_enter_your_chrony_Passwd>

If the passwd is wrong, or some characters are incompatible with the terminal, 
then you will get:

"Password: 501 Not authorised --- Reply not authenticated"


You can test this by entering the wrong passwd initially.  Unfortunately, I no 
longer have the PC running chrony to test it here.

-- 
Regards,
Mick

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Re: [gentoo-user] Odd cron errors

[Dale]

Mick wrote:
> Please try this: Go the PC that keeps getting these messages in its
> logs. Run: $ chrony chronyc> password password:
> <manually_enter_your_chrony_Passwd> If the passwd is wrong, or some
> characters are incompatible with the terminal, then you will get:
> "Password: 501 Not authorised --- Reply not authenticated" You can
> test this by entering the wrong passwd initially. Unfortunately, I no
> longer have the PC running chrony to test it here. 
Since I'm having the same issue:

root@fireball / # chronyc password
Password:
501 Not authorised --- Reply not authenticated
root@fireball / #

So, that answers that question. It seems a password needs to be set here.

< scratches head >

It also seems we have the default setup and we all get this error at the
same time.  I got mine just a bit ago.

Dale

:-)  :-)

Re: [gentoo-user] Odd cron errors

[Dale]

Dale wrote:
> Mick wrote:
>> Please try this: Go the PC that keeps getting these messages in its
>> logs. Run: $ chrony chronyc> password password:
>> <manually_enter_your_chrony_Passwd> If the passwd is wrong, or some
>> characters are incompatible with the terminal, then you will get:
>> "Password: 501 Not authorised --- Reply not authenticated" You can
>> test this by entering the wrong passwd initially. Unfortunately, I no
>> longer have the PC running chrony to test it here. 
> Since I'm having the same issue:
>
> root@fireball / # chronyc password
> Password:
> 501 Not authorised --- Reply not authenticated
> root@fireball / #
>
> So, that answers that question. It seems a password needs to be set here.
>
> < scratches head >
>
> It also seems we have the default setup and we all get this error at the
> same time.  I got mine just a bit ago.
>
> Dale
>
> :-)  :-)
>

Update.  This *SEEMS* to make it happy. 

/etc/chrony/chrony.keys

Make it look something like this:

1 testchrony
2 MD5 HEX:B028F91EA5D93D06C2E140B26C7F41EC
3 SHA1 HEX:1DC764E07B1911FA67EFC7ECBC4B0D73F68A070C

The password is behind #1.  You also need this file set up too. 

/etc/chrony/chrony.conf

This is the key part:

# Tell chronyd which numbered key in the file is used as the password
# for chronyc. (You can pick any integer up to 2**32-1.  '1' is just a
# default.  Using another value will _NOT_ increase security.)

commandkey 1

Should be able to just uncomment the thing.  Restart chrony, or I guess
you could tell it to reload the config, then test again. 

root@fireball / # chronyc password
Password:
200 OK
root@fireball / #

Now let's see if I get a email with a error next week.  o_O 

Dale

:-)  :-) 

Re: [gentoo-user] Odd cron errors

[Mick]

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On Sunday 13 Jul 2014 16:54:54 Dale wrote:
> Dale wrote:
> > Mick wrote:
> >> Please try this: Go the PC that keeps getting these messages in its
> >> logs. Run: $ chrony chronyc> password password:
> >> <manually_enter_your_chrony_Passwd> If the passwd is wrong, or some
> >> characters are incompatible with the terminal, then you will get:
> >> "Password: 501 Not authorised --- Reply not authenticated" You can
> >> test this by entering the wrong passwd initially. Unfortunately, I no
> >> longer have the PC running chrony to test it here.
> > 
> > Since I'm having the same issue:
> > 
> > root@fireball / # chronyc password
> > Password:
> > 501 Not authorised --- Reply not authenticated
> > root@fireball / #
> > 
> > So, that answers that question. It seems a password needs to be set here.
> > 
> > < scratches head >
> > 
> > It also seems we have the default setup and we all get this error at the
> > same time.  I got mine just a bit ago.
> > 
> > Dale
> > 
> > :-)  :-)
> 
> Update.  This *SEEMS* to make it happy.
> 
> /etc/chrony/chrony.keys
> 
> Make it look something like this:
> 
> 1 testchrony
> 2 MD5 HEX:B028F91EA5D93D06C2E140B26C7F41EC
> 3 SHA1 HEX:1DC764E07B1911FA67EFC7ECBC4B0D73F68A070C
> 
> The password is behind #1.  You also need this file set up too.
> 
> /etc/chrony/chrony.conf
> 
> This is the key part:
> 
> # Tell chronyd which numbered key in the file is used as the password
> # for chronyc. (You can pick any integer up to 2**32-1.  '1' is just a
> # default.  Using another value will _NOT_ increase security.)
> 
> commandkey 1
> 
> Should be able to just uncomment the thing.  Restart chrony, or I guess
> you could tell it to reload the config, then test again.
> 
> root@fireball / # chronyc password
> Password:
> 200 OK
> root@fireball / #
> 
> Now let's see if I get a email with a error next week.  o_O


Right, you need to set up your /etc/chrony/chrony.keys file, but Peter said 
that he had configured all this.

-- 
Regards,
Mick

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Re: [gentoo-user] Odd cron errors

[Peter Humphrey]

On Sunday 13 July 2014 17:30:43 Mick wrote:
> On Sunday 13 Jul 2014 16:54:54 Dale wrote:
> > Dale wrote:
> > > Mick wrote:
> > >> Please try this: Go the PC that keeps getting these messages in its
> > >> logs. Run: $ chrony chronyc> password password:
> > >> <manually_enter_your_chrony_Passwd> If the passwd is wrong, or some
> > >> characters are incompatible with the terminal, then you will get:
> > >> "Password: 501 Not authorised --- Reply not authenticated" You can
> > >> test this by entering the wrong passwd initially. Unfortunately, I no
> > >> longer have the PC running chrony to test it here.
> > > 
> > > Since I'm having the same issue:
> > > 
> > > root@fireball / # chronyc password
> > > Password:
> > > 501 Not authorised --- Reply not authenticated
> > > root@fireball / #
> > > 
> > > So, that answers that question. It seems a password needs to be set
> > > here.
> > > 
> > > < scratches head >
> > > 
> > > It also seems we have the default setup and we all get this error at the
> > > same time.  I got mine just a bit ago.
> > > 
> > > Dale
> > > 
> > > :-)  :-)
> > 
> > Update.  This *SEEMS* to make it happy.
> > 
> > /etc/chrony/chrony.keys
> > 
> > Make it look something like this:
> > 
> > 1 testchrony
> > 2 MD5 HEX:B028F91EA5D93D06C2E140B26C7F41EC
> > 3 SHA1 HEX:1DC764E07B1911FA67EFC7ECBC4B0D73F68A070C
> > 
> > The password is behind #1.  You also need this file set up too.
> > 
> > /etc/chrony/chrony.conf
> > 
> > This is the key part:
> > 
> > # Tell chronyd which numbered key in the file is used as the password
> > # for chronyc. (You can pick any integer up to 2**32-1.  '1' is just a
> > # default.  Using another value will _NOT_ increase security.)
> > 
> > commandkey 1
> > 
> > Should be able to just uncomment the thing.  Restart chrony, or I guess
> > you could tell it to reload the config, then test again.
> > 
> > root@fireball / # chronyc password
> > Password:
> > 200 OK
> > root@fireball / #
> > 
> > Now let's see if I get a email with a error next week.  o_O
> 
> Right, you need to set up your /etc/chrony/chrony.keys file, but Peter said
> that he had configured all this.

Right, and so I had, but somewhere along the line the key had got lost. So 
I've set it again and I'll see what happens next week.

Thanks for the prod, Mick.

-- 
Regards
Peter