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Updating crontab using the crontab -e command (vim)

S

ShaunHH

Member
Hi All,
I've got a question for any linux gurus out there...

I've never been able to edit my crontab file using the standard crontab -e command.

What happens is that when I issue the crontab -e command the crontab file gets loaded into vim, but when I save and exit I get the following message in vim:

"/mnt/hd2/mod/var/spool/cron/crontabs.4569" 30L, 1032C written
E138: Can't write viminfo file /.viminfo!

then when I close vim, the crontab file doesn't get updated.
I'm guessing that it's trying to write a .viminfo file into the read-only part of the system but don't know how I can change the setting for this.
I've had this issue for a long time, but have always got around it by simply copying an updated crontab into /mod/var/spool/cron/crontabs/root directory
Then the crontab updates fine (and shown by doing a crontab -l command).

Any ideas on this? Would be nice to do it the proper way intead of uding the workaround... :)
 
I never ever use vim - a tool designed by masochists for use by masochists

I just go into file editor from the webif diagnostics page and select crontab from the list of frequently edited files, make my changes and save
 
In OP's case it looks like vim is installed but not working. It saves the temporary file /mod/var/spool/cron/crontabs.nnnnn, then fails to save its history file /.viminfo, so that crontab thinks the edit failed and discards the temporary file.

If vim works directly from the telnet command-line, this is a result of some initialisation not having set HOME, or the ~ not being parsed in ~/.viminfo, when crontab runs vim.

crontab -e uses the VISUAL and EDITOR environment variables to find an editor, apparently defaulting to vi in the CF package.

A work-around is to uninstall vim and use BusyBox vi instead, which works for me with VISUAL=vi having been set automatically.

I guess that vim has installed a script that overrides VISUAL=vi in /mod/etc/profile.d, so you could also try editing that to stop it from doing so.

Finally, you could try forcing vim to save its history file in the right place using the -i ... option (search "man vim").
 
/df said:
If vim works directly from the telnet command-line, this is a result of some initialisation not having set HOME, or the ~ not being parsed in ~/.viminfo, when crontab runs vim.

crontab -e uses the VISUAL and EDITOR environment variables to find an editor, apparently defaulting to vi in the CF package.

A work-around is to uninstall vim and use BusyBox vi instead, which works for me with VISUAL=vi having been set automatically.

I guess that vim has installed a script that overrides VISUAL=vi in /mod/etc/profile.d, so you could also try editing that to stop it from doing so.

Finally, you could try forcing vim to save its history file in the right place using the -i ... option (search "man vim").
Click to expand...
thanks - a couple of areas to investigate there :thumbsup:
 
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