cron job not running

[Helmut Schneider]

Hi,

if I put this into /etc/crontab:

*       *       *       *       *       root    aptitude -syV
safe-upgrade | grep -E '^\s+.*$'"

nothing happens. If I run the same command from dash:

~$ aptitude -syV safe-upgrade | grep -E '^\s+.*$'
  libsnmp-base [5.4.2.1~dfsg0ubuntu1-0ubuntu2.1 ->
5.4.2.1~dfsg0ubuntu1-0ubuntu2.2]
  libsnmp15 [5.4.2.1~dfsg0ubuntu1-0ubuntu2.1 ->
5.4.2.1~dfsg0ubuntu1-0ubuntu2.2]
  libssl0.9.8 [0.9.8k-7ubuntu8.11 -> 0.9.8k-7ubuntu8.13]
  libxml2 [2.7.6.dfsg-1ubuntu1.4 -> 2.7.6.dfsg-1ubuntu1.5]
  openssl [0.9.8k-7ubuntu8.11 -> 0.9.8k-7ubuntu8.13]
  snmp [5.4.2.1~dfsg0ubuntu1-0ubuntu2.1 ->
5.4.2.1~dfsg0ubuntu1-0ubuntu2.2]
  snmpd [5.4.2.1~dfsg0ubuntu1-0ubuntu2.1 ->
5.4.2.1~dfsg0ubuntu1-0ubuntu2.2]
~$

Even if I put those line into a shell-script (dash) it does not give
any output.

According to cron.log the job should have run:

May 29 17:36:01 desoggw05 CRON[22700]: pam_unix(cron:session): session
opened for user root by (uid=0)
May 29 17:36:01 desoggw05 CRON[22701]: (root) CMD (aptitude -syV
safe-upgrade | grep -E '^\s+.*$')
May 29 17:36:02 desoggw05 CRON[22700]: pam_unix(cron:session): session
closed for user root

If I change the REGEX to '^ +.*$' the script runs fine.

Why?

Tested on 10.04 und 12.04.

Thanks, Helmut