I only have a cron.deny file, which is empty.
This problem was firstly reported on another machine which serves as a print server. Then, I had to move a bunch of machines from RHEL 5 to CentOS 5. See thread:
http://daemonforums.org/showthread.php?t=1390.
The switch didn't help the print server to revive it's cron. However, I suppose this could be the cause of the webcam's server disease. I switched another bunch of boxes to CentOS this week. All the three of them survived the cron restart, so I am unsure this is the exact cause of the problem.
I tried to reboot both machines (the print server and the webcam server). Intersting thing, the format of my cron logs changed, as if the application used switched from vixie-cron to anacron!?
Code:
Jul 17 11:44:10 webcam01 anacron[3215]: Anacron 2.3 started on 2008-07-17
Jul 17 11:44:10 webcam01 anacron[3215]: Will run job `cron.daily' in 65 min.
Jul 17 11:44:10 webcam01 anacron[3215]: Jobs will be executed sequentially
Jul 17 12:49:09 webcam01 anacron[3215]: Job `cron.daily' started
Jul 17 12:49:43 webcam01 anacron[3215]: Job `cron.daily' terminated
Jul 17 12:49:43 webcam01 anacron[3215]: Normal exit (1 jobs run)
Good news: a few tasks ran properly (the daily tasks for example, ran by themselves after), but I am still having the problem with my hourly tasks (some checks for Nagios).
I am going to investigate on the case with this change, any insights are still very appreciated. Thanks.