[PLUG] Debian cron question - root and the system wide file

[Marc Zucchelli <marcz908@yahoo.com>]

I am running debian 3.1 sarge.  When I run crontab -e
as root, it displays the system wide crontab file that
has the username column and the run-parts commands,
the one that is in /etc/crontab.

When I added a line to the file in crontab -e, I added
a username column because the rest of the lines had a
username column.  It didnt work until I removed the
username column.  Next, I edited /etc/crontab
directly, and it didnt have the lines I added while in
crontab -e, and it would only work while editing
/etc/crontab directly if I used a username column.

Later, I found out that root has a separate file in:
/var/spool/cron/crontabs/root
and that is the file I was editing with crontab -e, no
wonder the username column didnt work.

My question is, why are there all those run-parts, and
cron.daily lines, WITH a username column in:
/var/spool/cron/crontabs/root
when they are already in /etc/crontab where the
username field actually works.

My other question is, can I remove these lines from:
/var/spool/cron/crontabs/root

Thank you.


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