Hi All,

I am getting a bit confused from the messages that I receive in my gmail
account sent from my crontab.

First, is related to the title which is:

Cron <root@mylaptop> test -x /usr/sbin/run-crons && /usr/sbin/run-crons

I am not sure what this "test -x" part represents?


The second question is related to the output of chkrootkit, which is run by
the cron.weekly and emails stuff that don't make much sense to me:
==========================================
$Ld$ Ll$(Lt$0HÄ8ÃAWAVAUIýATUSHH°èH›AÇHÝHL$ØMäITMt$(HÒtd fDIt$
Hötm½(Ht8fLïèHþÿÿITHÃHÆLïèHßèHîHÅ(It$
HuÊIMôIÆ(HÒu¢DÿèH1À[]AA]A^A_ÃLæLïèþÿÿëÊLïH5H421ÒèoþÿÿDÿèëÃDS1öH°H;èHß[éCopyright
(C) the VideoLAN VLC media player developersLicensed under the terms of the
GNU General Public License, version 2 or later.Freebox TV listing (French ISP
free.fr services)http/shout-
winamp://www.shoutcast.com/sbin/newxml.phtmlhttp/shout-
winamp://www.shoutcast.com/sbin/newtvlister.phtml?alltv=1http://mafreebox.freebox.fr/freeboxtv/playlist.m3uhttp://www.canalplus.fr/index.php?pid=1784shoutshoutcast-
limitShoutcastShoutcast radio
listingsservices_discoveryshoutcastShoutcastTVShou tcast TV
listingsshoutcasttvfrenchtvFrench TVFreeboxfreeboxStarting FreeboxStarting
FrenchTVStarting ShoutTVStarting ShoutRadiono-playlist-
autostartItemAddedShoutcast RadioShoutcast TVFreebox TVvlc://nopCanal +Les
Guignolshttp-forward-cookieszRL«ACF0lsJG ,A¤,A¼,AÔ)AìOG0$OL@4DûBBB E(A0A8D@|
GCC: (Gentoo 4.3.4 p1.0, pie-10.1.5)
4.3.4.symtab.strtab.shstrtab.rela.text.data.bss.ro data.str1.8.rodata.str1.1.rela.data.rel.ro.local.r ela.eh_frame.comment.note.GNU-
stack @&12@2s
==========================================

Now I happened to notice that the above legible references to vlc are from the
"services discovery" list that the vlc player shows under Media/Services. Not
sure what they are doing in chckrootkit ... is it telling me that it just
scanned all such content? When I run it manually it looks just the same and
follows a long output following "Searching for suspect PHP files..." I am not
sure I understand why chkrootkit is emailing these to me and if I need to do
something about it.
--
Regards,
Mick

2010/05/04 Mick <michaelkintzios@gmail.com>:
> * Cron <root@mylaptop> test -x /usr/sbin/run-crons && /usr/sbin/run-crons
>
> I am not sure what this "test -x" part represents?

The `test -x <ffile>' part means "Test that <file> is executable."
and, implicitly, tests that the file exists. Sorry not to be more
helpful.

--
Jason Dusek
Linux User #510144 | http://counter.li.org/

Mick writes:

> I am getting a bit confused from the messages that I receive in my
> gmail account sent from my crontab.
>
> First, is related to the title which is:
>
> Cron <root@mylaptop> test -x /usr/sbin/run-crons &&
> /usr/sbin/run-crons
>
> I am not sure what this "test -x" part represents?

It means: If /usr/sbin/run-crons is executable, execute it. It could also
be written as
[ -x /usr/sbin/run-crons ] && /usr/sbin/run-crons
or
f=/usr/sbin/run-crons
if [ -x $f ]
then
$f
fi


No idea about your other question, though.

Wonko