[lug] Automatic removal of cron job by cron script

[David L. Anselmi]

Kenneth D Weinert wrote:
> Here's a different idea that might make it a bit easier:
> 
> Have the monitor program check for the existence of a flag file when
> there's an error. If it's not there, fire off the alert script.
> 
> The alert script creates the flag file.

Rather than use a file (is that a semaphore?) I'd check that the alert 
script is running.  If something has killed it, it gets restarted when 
the cron runs.  You could also have the monitor kill the alert when the 
problem clears (but maybe it needs to stop sooner than the next cron run).

But wouldn't Big Brother, Nagios, or one of the other monitoring tools 
be better to use?  (I keep telling people they don't want to reinvent 
applications and they keep telling me no, they really do.)

Dave