RE: empty cron.log

["Pierre A Humblet" <Pierre dot Humblet at ieee dot org>]

> -----Original Message-----
> From:  Jason Crawford
> Sent: Friday, December 18, 2015 1:01 PM
> 
> On 12/18/2015 9:50 AM, Pierre A Humblet wrote:
> >> -----Original Message-----
> >> From: Jason Crawford
> >> Sent: Friday, December 18, 2015 2:17 AM
> >>
> >> Hello everyone,
> >>      Thanks for a great offering and all the help you provide.    I've
> >> used cygwin for a few years, but not deeply.  cron is one of the tools I
> >> find very handy.   Recently I upgraded to Windows 10 and ran in to
> >> problems on my Surface Pro 3.   I installed cygwin cron (latest cygwin
> >> 32bit (2.873).  Cron is 4.1-63.) and it seemed to work but as soon as
> >> I switched my laptop to use the Microsoft ID cron as Microsoft suggest,
> >> cron stopped working, complaining that it can not switch id's.   If I do
> >> a fresh install of Win10, switch to the Microsoft ID, and install cygwin
> >> and cron, cron won't even work once.   And if I do a fresh install of
> >> Win10 and never switch to the Microsoft id, cygwin cron works fine.
> >> When it fails, the cronevents log file complains that it can't switch user
> id's.
> >>
> >> I really don't do much.  I just install cygwin with cron, emacs, ssh,
> >> inetutils, unison, wget.  Then I start up a cygwin window as
> >> administrator.   Then cron-config, yes (service), [] (blank CYGWIN),
> >> yes (self), yes (start daemon).   Then I create a trivial cron file "*/1
> >> * * * *  date >~/cron_is_running.txt".   crontab mycron     ... and I
> >> wait a minute.  Then I invoke cronevents.
> >>
> >> I want to try out all the features of that Microsoft touts as coming
> >> with use of the Microsoft ID, but I don't want to lose cron.
> >>
> >> What do we all suggest that I do next?
> > Is that only with Cron or also with other services such as passwordless
> sshd?
> I don't run sshd on the machine (as far as I know).  I only ssh out.
> That works fine without a password.   But...
> 
> But I've just tried setting up sshd on two Windows machines just now.
> I ran in to a few complications due to being a novice, but it eventually
> worked on Windows 7.    I've still not gotten sshd to work on Windows 10
> if my ssh client is on another machine.  That seems to be some sort of
> network connection or firewall problem.  I can ssh from the local Win10
> machine to the local Win10 machine though.   I have only one account and
> I can ssh in to that without a password using authorized_keys.
> 
> Does that answer your question?   Is there a simpler or more helpful way
> that I can gather data for you?   I don't mind reinstalling the
> operating system if that would help.

Thanks, Jason.

I assume both cron-config and ssh-host-config asked you for the name of a privileged user,
and you used the same name in both cases.

You may want to try what I suggested to someone else a while ago
http://cygwin.1069669.n5.nabble.com/cron-error-can-t-switch-user-context-td61919.html

The instructions were, as follows, except that now the service should run under the privileged account, 
(use -u), not under SYSTEM (the default)

> Stop the cron service. 
> Use a simple crontab that runs every minute, for only one user. 
> Using cygrunsrv, create a new service runing "strace" with argument "cron" under SYSTEM 
> 1)  cygrunsrv -I trace_cron -p /usr/bin/strace -a /usr/sbin/cron 
> 2)  cygrunsrv -S trace_cron 
> 3)  Let this run for no more than 2 minutes, output will be in /var/log/trace_cron.log 
>      You may have to use kill -9 to stop the service (kill the cron pid) 
> 4)  Send the trace_cron.log file as an attachment. 
> 5)  Remove the trace_cron service 


Pierre



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