weird cron log

[kalin mintchev]

>> > 1. there are entries from "Jun 26 17:xx:xx" before entries from "Jun
>> 26
>> > 16:xx:xx"?!? and entries from "Jun 26 09:36:51" that are in between
>> "Jun
>> > 26 16:xx:xx" stamped records?!! how is that possible?!?
>
> The files are created sequentially on-the-fly.  If you changed time on
> the machine, then the timestamps in the file can be switched.  Look at
> the last line of the log entries you submitted...did your machine
> suddenly switch to daylight savings time at that point?

nothing has chaNged - the machine just crashed an i rebooted but it has
been running for the last 5 - 6 months...  how would you explain the logs
from 9 am in between entries from 4 pm?!

>
>> > and
>> > 2. each hour after the first minute of it there is something like:
>> > Jun 26 15:01:01 cellphone crond(pam_unix)[19571]: session opened for
>> user
>> > root by (uid=0)
>> >
>> > there are no cron.hourly files.. and nothing for crontab -l. so i'm
>> not
>> > sure what that entry means...
>> > any ideas?
>
> These are from the system crontab, /etc/crontab.  It has a job that
> fires up every hour at 1 minute after the hour to run anything in
> /etc/cron.hourly.  However, it starts the shell BEFORE it realizes
> there's nothing in /etc/cron.hourly and that's what you're seeing--the
> shell launch.  Note in your items below that the shell lasts for less
> than a second.

apparently not always:

Jun 26 04:01:01 cellphone crond(pam_unix)[13552]: session opened for user
root by (uid=0)
Jun 26 04:01:01 cellphone crond(pam_unix)[13552]: session closed for user
root
Jun 26 04:02:01 cellphone crond(pam_unix)[13554]: session opened for user
root by (uid=0)
Jun 26 04:02:13 cellphone crond(pam_unix)[13554]: session closed for user
root


that's weird. i did look for similar logs in some older redhat machines
and there is the same situation in crontab but no such log. and of course
bsd doesn't have hourly runs although it does run atrun every 5 min -
still no such log....  i guess this must be a fedora thing or newer
linux?!

thanks....