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The crontab command fails with error: You are not authorized to use cron

Troubleshooting


Problem

User cannot use the crontab command in AIX

Symptom

Running the crontab command gives this error:
$ crontab -l
crontab: you are not authorized to use cron.  Sorry.
or
0481-109 You are not authorized to use the cron command.

Cause

First check the cron.allow and cron.deny files in the directory /var/adm/cron. The rules governing the use of these files is documented in the crontab man page.

If you have already checked the cron.allow and cron.deny files, then this technote may help.

Check that the "daemon" attribute for the user (or the default user) has not been changed to "no". This is set in the /etc/security/user file, and has this comment explaining what it is used for:

* daemon   Defines whether the user can execute programs using the system
*          resource controller (SRC). Possible values: true or false.

Check to see if the user's setting for "daemon" is set to "false"
# lsuser -a daemon myuser
myuser daemon=false

or if the default user is set to "false"
# lssec -f /etc/security/user -s default -a daemon
default daemon=false

Resolving The Problem

If the individual user account's "daemon" attribute is set to "false" change it with:
# chuser daemon=true myuser

If the default entry is set to false, either override it by setting the individual's attribute, or reset the default attribute with:
# chsec -f /etc/security/user -s default -a daemon=true

[{"Product":{"code":"SWG10","label":"AIX"},"Business Unit":{"code":"BU058","label":"IBM Infrastructure w\/TPS"},"Component":"--","Platform":[{"code":"PF002","label":"AIX"}],"Version":"Version Independent","Edition":"","Line of Business":{"code":"LOB08","label":"Cognitive Systems"}}]

Document Information

More support for:
AIX

Software version:
Version Independent

Operating system(s):
AIX

Document number:
678447

Modified date:
17 June 2018

UID

isg3T1020419

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