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I did edit /etc/crontab using corntab -e.

I have only one entry enter image description here

After save contab is not created despite the message.

enter image description here

To be honest I have no idea what to do. I simply want to create a simple daily job.

Second question. How can I change the editor for crontab -e?

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1 Answers1

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The command crontab -e does not edit the system-wide crontab file /etc/crontab, it edits a user-specific file in /var/spool/cron/crontabs . The editor used may be changed using the EDITOR or VISUAL environment variable ex.

EDITOR=/bin/nano crontab -e

You can confirm that you changes have installed by listing the crontab file, using crontab -l .

If you want to place your job in /etc/crontab instead, you would edit it like any other system file ex.

sudoedit /etc/crontab

or (to use the nano editor explicitly)

sudo nano /etc/crontab

but remember that the format of this file is slightly different - in particular, because the file is not user-specific it requires an additional (sixth) field containing the username under which to run each job.

steeldriver
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