the echo of `USE`

[hictio]

i`ve noticed, this last few days, that sometimes i get a very rare message echoed onto my prompt, something that, to my knowledge, it hasn`t happened before.
all of the sudden i see a `USE` message at the prompt, if type `Enter` it disapears, and its not stored in the command history of the bash.
any ideas what that might come from?
i thought that it might be the output of a crond job, but i redirect all the output of such tasks to several files or the /dev/null, besides, most of them are scheduled to run at very bizarre hours of the night.
any info will be welcomed.

[mikek147]

I think, what you're seeing, is a partial error discribing Usage or Use for a script that you may have running in crontab. Besides what come to your screen, look in /var/log/messages and /var/log/syslog for more info. You might try running:

tail -f /var/log/syslog (or messages)

in a separate window to see if you can see any error that occur when you get that console message. -mk

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If it ain't broke, fix it till it is.

[hictio]

thanks mike, i`ll try that command tonight, to see if `messages` it prints something annoying.

[hictio]

i have worked out that annoying `USE` message, i simply appended all the cronjobs to a file that is periodically `dev/nulled`; i wonder if the problem has arised because i`m not running any e-mail program? isn`t cron designed to mail it`s outcome to the root?

[mikek147]

By default, sendmail is setup on your system, without any configuration required, for sending email between system users. To check if this works on your box, try sending an email from root to one of your users. -mk

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If it ain't broke, fix it till it is.

[hictio]

thanks mike, haven`t seen your reply...
no, i have `commented` from the rc.d the start sendmail daemon. therefore i guess i`m not running that program; but, like you say, i`ll try it tonight.
thanks a lot.

[hictio]

i found out something new about those annoying `USE` messages.
they only appear when you add a crontab, and on the same console that you used for that.
the only way to get rid of them is to log out. once you get back, they won`t bother you no longer.