Unable to set cronjob in Fedora 16

[karthick87]

I am unable to set any cronjob using "crontab -e". The set cronjob is not listed when using "crontab -l" How to fix this issue?

Error:

[karthick@karthick-it ~]$ crontab -e
no crontab for karthick - using an empty one
crontab: installing new crontab
"/tmp/crontab.k6HMVB":1: bad command
errors in crontab file, can't install.
Do you want to retry the same edit? n
crontab: edits left in /tmp/crontab.k6HMVB
[karthick@karthick-it ~]$ crontab -l
no crontab for karthick

[george_toolan]

You know how to use vi? If you don't then try something like

export EDITOR=gedit

or any other text editor you know how to handle ;-)

[jpollard]

I prefer to keep a copy of the crontab entries. Then I can edit that at will (and leave in the middle if called away). Use any editor you want.

The use "crontab <file" to load it. Now you have a backup of the active file - in case something goes off that shouldn't (such as an accidental fork bomb, causing the admin to delete the crontab file from the system).

As another suggestion, I keep the entries simple in the crontab file. I use references to scripts for things that have two (or more) commands. This allows me to edit the script (and test them) before being put in the active crontab list.